A Crash & A Crossover
by Aietradaea
Summary: A plane crashes in a desolate mountain range, leaving sixteen survivors. With tension running high, alliances are formed, enemies made and schemes concocted. Contains characters from a variety of sources - you don't need to be familiar with them.
1. Crash

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Right, I do own the odd thing here and there, but it's probably safest to say that hey, it's a fanfic. If you recognize anyone, they're obviously not mine. The titles of chapters are also not mine - they're lines from various songs. This particular one is from Panic! At The Disco's "Build God, Then We'll Talk".

I won't give a character list any more, since it's fairly irrelevant where they've all come from. You probably don't really need to be familiar with them to read this. And yep, there's a few real people in here - all used with their permission, input and approval.

**Warnings** are generally pretty mild - there's alcohol use, death, a little violence and some implied implications of implying slash. But not really.

So, without further ado, I bring to you my most esoteric fanfic. Welcome to "A Crash & A Crossover"!

* * *

"This is the captain speaking. We may be experiencing some slight turbulence, so we would like to advise you to return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts." There was a good deal of static on the intercom, and the words were only just distinguishable. Silver Jerrichal, sitting at the front of the plane, pulled a face and clicked his seatbelt in place, replacing an iPod earphone in his ear. Beside him to the left was the window, and on the right an empty seat, which he hadn't even needed to ask for. He suspected it was something to do with the trouble he had had with his passport back at the airport. On the seat beside that, however, he had a neighbour, and glancing sideways out of the corner of his eye, he was startled to see that neighbour, who hadn't moved for the entire flight, holding a small white mouse in a gloved hand.

_How on earth did customs miss that?_ he thought incredulously. Then again, how could his neighbour have managed to get through customs in the first place? He or she wore a white, full-face mask with red glass eyepieces and four holes for breathing, a bulky dark green jacket with a hood and large, solid-looking boots. The only thing that could be seen of the person underneath was long, black, spiky hair. Oddly enough, although the flight had been at least three hours so far, they had sat completely motionless the whole time – this appearance of the mouse was the first thing Silver had seen them do.

In the middle block of three seats, to the right of Silver's strange, masked neighbour, a man had been hammering the flight-service button impatiently for a good half an hour now.

"Rum," he muttered. "Where's the rum?" The person to the right of him, a large woman with curly red hair and a face plastered in makeup, raised her eyebrows at him.

"I'd go for a nice lager meself," she drawled. "Or a sherry, p'raps. Do we 'ave to pay for it"

"Rum!" he called down the aisle, thumping his whole fist on the panel of buttons while the lady watched him disdainfully, staring with open disgust at his long, unwashed hair, red bandanna tied around his head, long leather coat and large, battered-looking hat on his head.

"So who are you?" she demanded.

"_Captain _Jack Sparrow," he replied, stressing the "captain". He paused, watching her expectantly.

"Well? Am I s'posed to 'ave heard of you or something?" she snapped.

"You haven't heard of me?" he sighed. Then, turning back to lean across the aisle, "RUM"

"This bloke's nuts," the lady whispered loudly to her other neighbour on her right, a teenager with nearly as much makeup as herself.

"So's this one," the teenager answered, nodding towards the person just across the aisle from herself. "He's just introduced himself to whoever's next to him as 'someone of the House of something-or-other, known to his kindred as the Prince of Cats"

"Prince of Cats?" the lady snorted, and for a moment, she and the teenager shared a kind of understanding.

"Cilla Battersby," she introduced herself.

"Guenittia Reizghnionne." The teenager wore a short pink halterneck top with a butterfly in the shape of a heart on the front and a miniskirt so short even Cilla would not have worn it. Her hair was blonde – dyed, Cilla could tell from the slight regrowth of red at the top – and she had large, bright green eyes.

"Our inflight meal will be served shortly," the intercom crackled. "The meals for this flight are the-"

"RUM!" Jack Sparrow exclaimed delightedly so that they missed the first option.

"…or the-"

"Vindaloo?" someone behind them called out, drowning out the second option. Cilla turned and gave the person – a youngish man with greasy dreadlocks tied in a ponytail and a curry-stained shirt – a sour look, which he appeared not to notice.

The dinner trolleys came out from behind the curtain at the front of the plane and trundled down the aisle. Less than a minute later, it came trundling back again, much to Cilla's indignation.

"Well are we getting any food or what?" she screeched. The trolley disappeared behind the curtain and a different trolley emerged.

"Will that be the pasta or the chicken for you?" the flight hostess asked Silver, who sighed to himself. Much as he detested airplane food, he was rather hungry.

"Uhh…chicken for me, please," he answered.

"And for you?" the hostess addressed the little masked person. For a moment, the person didn't move – the mouse had disappeared, Silver observed. Then, he or she turned their head slowly to meet the flight hostess's puzzled look, presumably staring hard at her from behind the red glass eyepieces. They remained like that for several long minutes until the flight hostess, looking slightly unnerved, mumbled "Nothing for you then?" She turned to Jack Sparrow behind her, who was looking a little more expectant.

"Rum," he said before the flight hostess could utter a word. "And a larder for the lady." Cilla looked rather pleased to be referred to as a lady, and put on a sickly sweet look.

"I'm sorry, we don't have any rum," the hostess apologized. "Maybe wine"

"Well where's the rum?" Jack insisted, looking rather panicky.

"We can't serve drinks over a safe alcohol level on flights," she explained. "The altitude means that it has a greater effect than normal"

"So you've got a few lousy beers and cheap wine, is that what you're saying?" Cilla called over the top of Jack's head. The flight hostess struggled to retain her polite, friendly look. After all, she had dealt with worse from the pilots.

"Will you have the pasta or the chicken, sir"

"Mmm…chicken," he decided.

"Same 'ere. And a dry red wine, if you've got anything decent," Cilla called out. When they had been served, the trolley creaked off down the aisle.

Silver peeled the tin-foil off the top of his meal, which already had that distinctive airplane food smell. He really _loathed_ airplane food.

"So you don't like this reheated stodge either, eh?" he joked to his neighbour. The masked head was turned again slowly to face Silver, and met with that unmoving stare, he immediately regretted asking and pretended to be fascinated with an unidentifiable white blob on his chicken.

Across the other side of the plane, Tybalt of the House of Capulet had gotten over his distaste at what was barely recognizable as pasta. He had just put a forkful in his mouth when the plane lurched violently and dropped several metres in the air. A number of people screamed, several small children started crying loudly, drinks were dropped in the aisle and Tybalt found himself choking on his mouthful of pasta.

"Got a furball, Prince of Cats?" Guenittia giggled as a fifteen year old boy next to him thumped him on the back. Cilla chuckled too, but Tybalt was too busy catching his breath to make any comment.

Silver had spilled his ginger beer – not when the plane lurched: he had kept a firm hold on it then, but he dropped it in shock when his neighbour stabbed a large knife, which seemed to appear from nowhere, into the wall in front of them and was now clutching the armrests of the chair, once again stock still. When the plane seemed to have regained stability, the person removed the knife from the wall as easily as if it had been stuck in soft butter and turned to Silver.

"…mmm…low…too low…control? No…" he or she mumbled. The voice was husky and whispery, undistinguishable as being male or female, and with illegible whispering sounds between the scattered words, and for a moment, Silver was too surprised to respond.

"Too low? Control?" he repeated, and yelped in fright when the long knife was pointed straight at him suddenly. But the knife wasn't pointing at him – it was pointing past him, to the window. He turned to look out the window and caught his breath sharply – the mountains they had been flying well above not long ago now loomed up beside the plane, rugged and ice-bound. A moment later, the rest of the plane noticed, and screams of panic broke out. The lights flickered and blew above Silver, and then in the rest of the plane, which only added to the confusion; Cilla's high-pitched shriek rose above the other passengers' shouting; Tybalt was on his feet – was that a gun he was holding?

"Smeg!" someone yelled.

"Tchakk-tcharakt'a!" Silver and someone behind Guenittia swore.

The plane continued to lose altitude, and suddenly there was a wrenching crack. The tail, along with some of the back half of the plane, struck something and fell to earth, some of the passengers towards the back were now being sucked out into the blizzard. Almost overcome by blind terror now, Silver hung on to his seat. Something cracked above him – the luggage rack – a hard object struck him on the back of the head and everything went black…


	2. Condition grounded but determined to try

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much. Chapter title is a line from Pink Floyd's "Learning To Fly".

* * *

Since finding out he was a Necromancer, just a year ago, Vedhix had come to accept that death would be a part of his life in a different way to most people. So when the plane began its headlong hurtle towards the ground, it had come as quite a shock to him - he might actually die! And that was _not_ a pleasant thought! For a moment, he had just sat, too scared to move. Then he had been elbowed by his dreadlocked neighbour, who had airplane-meal pasta all over his already curry-stained shirt.

"Trust me, I've been in worse crashes than this," he had said, taking the brace position. Vedhix had copied, trying hard to ignore screams and shouts of the people around him. There was what sounded like an explosion from somewhere. Moments later, the whole plane had jarred hard. Their movement was definitely slowing, and grinding unpleasantly. Now, it was over - everything was still.

"Ah smeg..."

"What happened?"

"Betty, you O.K.?"

"Help - someone's hurt!"

Vedhix lifted his head cautiously and looked around. The plane, or what was left of it, had crashed into a snowdrift in the middle of a wide, flat area. There were huge, rocky cliffs towering most of the way around them and snow was everywhere. Other people were standing up now and peering around. Many looked disbelieving that they had survived, others looked worried. From the looks of it, the engine on one of the wings had exploded before dropping off - that side of the plane was partially caved in and several windows had been shattered. In the seats there, one teenager was covering her face with blood-smeared hands; another in black short-shorts with mint-green buttons and a white and green belt was leaning over a third, who had been right beside the wing of the plane. Her arm on that side was blistered and burnt, and it looked like she had burns on her face as well, partly hidden by her hair.

Vedhix and his neighbour clambered over the seats and hurried over. The teenager with the burns - Betty, the others called her - appeared semi-conscious; the one covering her face, they could see now, had a gash running from above her left eyebrow across her face to the right corner of her mouth; the one in the short-shorts was limping and another was running her hands through her wavy orange hair, looking distraught.

"We need to move her," Vedhix's neighbour said.

"Who're you?" a teenager who appeared uninjured called out.

"Sme-...oh, uh, Dave Lister," he replied, shoving the back of a seat which, with very little resistance, gave way and toppled backwards. Someone stepped forwards - an earthperson, fairly short with wide, black eyes.

"You go check out the pilots' cabin - see if there's a radio or something," he ordered Lister. "You help move Betty. Someone start shifting these seats. Anyone else injured?" He gestured towards Jack Sparrow, who was fiddling with his moustache and looked up, surprised. Probably still in too much of a state of shock to protest against the earthperson - who introduced himself as Ion - taking charge, most people got to work trying to budge the seats, some of which had come loose in the crash. A boy, a goth of some sort by the looks of him, about fifteen years old, elbowed his way past Tybalt, who was still sitting, bending over with one hand on his face.

"What's wrong with you?" the boy, Craig, demanded.

"Dozebleed," Tybalt replied.

"Tilt your head back and pinch your nose," Craig advised. He turned back to facing down the aisle and nearly had _his_ nose removed when Silver's peculiar masked neighbour stuck his or her long, sharp knife in the air right in front of him and pointed it over to the other side of the plane where the two had been sitting. Craig could see someone lying slumped in his seat, unconscious. The luggage rack had cracked and broken above him and a bag handle was hanging down through the hole.

"Someone else injured over there," he called over to Ion. Guenittia, who had been frantically searching under her seat for something, looked over to where Craig pointed.

"Tchakk!" she swore.

"It's O.K. - he's just been knocked out by something," Vedhix assured her. He didn't appear to have checked Silver's pulse or breathing, but had simply moved his hand over Silver's forehead. But far from seeming relieved, she gasped. Lister, coming back through the door to the pilots' cabin, glanced in the direction Guenittia was staring, and in moments, everyone else was doing the same.

"Smeg!" he exclaimed.

"What the-"

"By my head!"

"Whoa..."

"Hm. Interesting."

"You're a _Necromancer_?" Guenittia shrieked, and Vedhix quickly turned away, lowering his head. Why did it have to be _so_ obvious? His eyes, which up until now, he had managed to keep hidden from the other survivors (he had gotten through Customs at the airport by telling the officer he had a 'retina inflammation'), gleamed with a strange red light in the middle, where his pupils should have been, clearly telling anyone who might see his eyes that he was a Necromancer. But from the confused looks Guenittia was now getting, Vedhix felt some relief - clearly Guenittia was the only one who actually knew what a Necromancer was.

"It means he can _kill people_!" Guenittia explained, sounding almost hysterical.

"What? Anyone could kill people if they wanted to," the orange-haired teenager put in.

"It's...it's not-" Guenittia stammered.

"It means," Vedhix interrupted calmly, "that if I wanted to - which I don't - I could take life from or give life to people just by touching them. And it means that my eyes are red. That's all." O.K., so maybe there was a bit more to it than that. Necromancers were supposed to be unbelievably powerful, weren't they? But perhaps it was better for both himself and everyone else that he didn't mention that now. And Guenittia clearly knew no more than she had already tried to tell them. There was a ripping sound behind him. He turned, and everyone else gradually moved back to their various jobs. The unidentifiable person who had first pointed Silver out to them was cutting away the cloth on the seat, and when Vedhix had moved Silver to the floor, he was handed extra makeshift blankets to cover the unconscious boy with.

_I would be better wearing that mask_, he thought bitterly, grabbing the cloth without thanks.

Across the other side of the plane, the other survivors were clustered around Lister.

"Pilots both dead," he reported grimly, "but there was a radio," and he held up a small black box which, although it looked fairly unimpressive, was the most welcome sight they had seen so far. However, after Lister had twiddled a few knobs, pushed a button, waved it in the air with the aerial extended, hit it on the top several times and eventually opened the back to reveal an empty battery compartment, their hope was rapidly fading. And when Guenittia hunted under her seat and pulled out her own phone, even that was reduced to a mangled, twisted lump of metal and plastic.

"They'll rescue us," Lister assured them. "They'll know we've crashed, and they'll retrace the flight path and see us." But this was little comfort, as the sun was low in the sky and many were already shivering.

"We need to block up that hole at the back," Ion announced. "Get the seat backs - they'll do. And some of the luggage, if you can get it down safely."

"Hey - who made you boss?" Guenittia demanded, rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm them. She had by now recovered from the initial shock of the crash enough to feel that Ion was far too bossy for her liking.

"Ard thou ob a worthy 'ouze?" Tybalt asked stuffily, still trying to stifle his nosebleed and seeming to agree with Guenittia, while Cilla mimicked him under her breath. "Whad is thy vather'z dabe?"

"What's my father's name? Theo," Ion replied, looking slightly puzzled. "Look - we need to block the hole up or we'll freeze in here."

"Rum!" Jack Sparrow exclaimed suddenly. He had been searching under his seat for his hat, which had been dropped in the crash, and when he lifted his hat, his precious flask of rum had been concealed underneath.

"What's that?" the orange-haired teenager, Ham, called.

"Oh...uh...bum!" he replied. "Bum! I said bum! Nothing under here! Bum!" He wriggled out from under the seats, slipping the rum into his pocket, stood up and began smoothing his moustache. Luckily for him, most of the others were too occupied with piling bags and the removed seats in the hole at the back of the plane to pay any attention to him. Not everyone was helping, he observed. Craig was leaning against the wall near where he had been sitting, doing his utmost to look miserable; Cilla was somehow looking extremely busy rummaging through her handbag; Guenittia was taking all the in-flight blankets out from the back pockets of the seats - which was, he supposed, actually helpful; Tybalt was holding a paper napkin from the airplane meals to his nose.

When the hole was sufficiently blocked up so that there was no longer an icy draught blowing through the plane, the group, sixteen in number, gathered in a circle with as many of the in-flight blankets and torn-off seat covers as they could gather in an attempt to keep warm. Guenittia was probably the most impractically dressed of any of the group, and she was suffering badly in the cold, shivering and blowing on her fingers. Craig, on the other hand, wore a long, leather trenchcoat of some sort, covered in little studs and chains, with a long-sleeved top, black jeans and mid-calf high boots.

"Give her your coat," Ion muttered to him, elbowing him.

"I'll freeze!" Craig protested.

"No you won't. She will."

"Can't she have Silver's?" Silver also wore a long, black trenchcoat - but minus the assorted metal decorations.

"Silver's unconscious. He could die if he gets cold now."

"But-" Craig went to complain again, but at a hard glare from Ion, surrendered. He removed his coat and tossed it across the circle to Guenittia, who looked surprised and glanced up at Craig.

"Well?" he said. "You're cold." For a moment, Guenittia peered at the coat, feeling that under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be caught dead in a goth's jacket. But then, these weren't normal circumstances and she could well end up dead. She slipped the coat on, giving Craig a smile that was perhaps a bit too sickeningly sweet to be merely grateful. He wasn't such a bad looking guy...

"We'll be rescued tomorrow," Lister assured them. "It was too late today, but they'll find us tomorrow."

"And if they don't?" Betty put in. She was conscious now, and her burns had been covered with strips of cloth for bandages.

"Then we'll survive," Lister replied. "We're not just going to give up. We'll stay alive until they do find us."


	3. Fear in the air, tension everywhere

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much - do own an iPod, though. This chapter title is from The Temptations' "Ball of Confusion".

* * *

As the sun rose behind the mountains, a few weak rays of light came filtering through the windows of the plane. The first of the sixteen people inside to awaken was Craig. He sat up and looked around blearily, eyeliner smudged around his eyes. Where was he? Who were these people?

Then he remembered. Of course - his luck hadn't been so good lately. A crash, and he had survived.

_Perhaps it would have been better if I'd died when the tail broke off_, he thought miserably. He had nothing to go back for - his dad was dead, killed by his own sister - also dead - and his mum was in jail for the crime. And now this! Stuck on some mountain in the middle of nowhere, with no chance of escape, despite what Lister had said! He felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and brushed them away angrily.

"Having emo thoughts?" a voice asked jokingly. He looked up. Betty was awake now, and holding out what looked like a razor blade to him, with a hand and arm that were burnt raw and blistered. A _razor blade_?

"You think this whole thing's just a big joke, don't you?" he snapped, startling Betty. "You think we're all going to be rescued and go back to our nice, happy families!"

"Hey, I-"

"But what if we're not? What if we all freeze out here? What if we are rescued, but don't even have a family to go back to?" He was shouting now, and more people had woken up and were watching this one-sided argument. "You just don't _care_, do you? You don't care about _anyone_! You're-" He had started to rise to his feet, but was stopped short suddenly when a knife appeared in front of his face. That odd little person in the mask, probably about half his height..._threatening him_? Cilla, who had been less than a metre away from Craig, awoke suddenly and, seeing the knife, shrieked ear-splittingly. Guenittia, beside her, had a rude awakening and also screamed at the knife and its wielder. Within moments, the whole plane was in a state of pandemonium. Craig had sat back down again and resumed his shouting, but the knife was kept pointed at him by probably the only person making no noise; Ion had woken up and was yelling, but his words could not be made out above the noise; Jack was yelling, but he looked more like he was yelling just for the sake of it; a thirteen-year-old girl, Claire, looked like she was shouting something at Ham and the teenager in the short-shorts, Bri... Suddenly, there were two loud cracks, and silence fell almost as quickly as the noise had started. Everyone turned to stare at Tybalt, who was on his feet and had just fired two pistol shots at a seat beside him which hadn't been removed yet. He blew on the tops of the two elegant looking guns he held and thrust them back into their holsters which were worn over his shoulders.

"What is this noise?" he asked quietly. "I would vanquish my enemies, for I am not one for peace, if it were that they were here. Who is thy enemy?" He directed this question to the person holding the knife, who lowered it. He or she looked around at the other people in the plane, whose eyes were all on them, and then returned that glassy gaze to Tybalt and kept it there. But the Prince of Cats was not about to be stared down by someone, even if he couldn't see their eyes, and returned the stare with his unblinking, black eyes. They remained like that for several long moments until the knife was raised again to point at Craig, slowly and warningly, and the anonymous person turned and walked away. Tybalt watched them, confused - although he had technically been turned down for a challenge, or maybe they had surrendered - who could tell, really - he felt no sense of either betrayal or triumph. He hadn't won anything, and he hadn't been insulted in any way. So there was no argument. Was that meant to happen? Weren't arguments meant to be fought out until there was a clear victor and vanquished?

"We need to sort out the food," someone said, breaking the uneasy silence.

"What food?" a teenager with Tweety-Bird glasses asked. "Do we have rollups?"

"Keren's, like, addicted to them or something," 'Du laughed.

"Well we can't afford to be 'addicted' to anything - we're going to have to ration what we have," Lister pointed out.

"Hey - I thought you said we were going to be rescued today!" Cilla protested loudly, and Guenittia nodded her agreement.

"Well...we might not be. So we have to be prepared."

"But I thought you said they'd know where we went down..." Guenittia whined.

"Look, I don't know when we'll be rescued," Lister sighed. "Just face it - we're stuck for now."

"Thou knowest any better?" Tybalt said to Guenittia and Cilla, who exchanged glances and smirked.

"I have a few rollups," Keren volunteered, taking a handful of the wrapped sugar snacks out of her bag and putting them on the floor. Everyone turned out their pockets and bags, and a pile of assorted food gradually grew in the middle of the floor - a squashed chocolate bar from Craig, a half-empty packet of indigestion tablets and an unopened tube of toothpaste from Lister, a bag of Anzac biscuits from 'Du, an apple from Ion, a biscuit from the person in the mask and several sticks of lipstick from Cilla, who blatantly ignored Ham and 'Du pointing out that these were inedible and Betty's comment that lipstick contained fish scales. Ion and Lister counted it up and decided that it should last them around two days.

"Silver could use something to drink, though," Lister commented, glancing worriedly around at Silver who was still unconscious. "Something strong, maybe - could bring him round." Jack fingered the comforting hard form of his flask of rum in his coat pocket and said nothing. Rum was for drinking - rum was for _Jack_ to drink.

"Hey - what about this stuff?" Claire called out from over by the pilots' cabin. The trolley with the airplane food was there, lying on its side and broken - it was incredible it hadn't slipped out when the tail broke off! And inside, a welcome sight - cans of drink, single-serve bottles of wine and a hundred or so packets of peanuts!

"Peanuts?" Cilla screeched. "We're going to live off peanuts? And lousy cheap wine?"

"Unless you have anything else, yeah," Betty answered. Cilla gave Betty her sourest look, but Betty was fiddling with the bandages on her burned arm and grimacing, and didn't notice.

Soon, fifteen of the sixteen survivors were sat around in a circle, munching a biscuit each. Bri, however, was sat a few metres away with her back to the rest of the group, not talking.

"Eh Bri - come sit with us!" Ham called, but Bri appeared not to hear. Tybalt, who was closest, turned and repeated the question:

"Bri, thy comrades wish to speak with thee." When Bri still didn't reply, he got up and went over to her.

"Bri?" She began moving her head slightly, almost rhythmically, a smile and a distant look on her face. Tybalt glanced around at the others, looking panicky, and was about to say something when Keren got up and went over to Bri.

"Oi, Bri!" she yelled. She reached up to Bri's ears and pulled out a pair of white earphones which were almost vibrating with the volume of the music they emitted.

"Oh! Hey..." Bri grinned. "We have food?" The two made their way back over to the group and Tybalt, feeling quite embarrassed, followed. So Bri wasn't mad - just trying to deafen herself.

"What is that?" Ion asked, pointing at the iPod when Bri and Keren had sat back down.

"iPod!" Bri replied happily, waving it at Ion. "Plays music."

"And it has a battery?"

"Yeah."

"Like the radio needs? Let's see..."

"Nah, different sort." Bri passed the pod over and Ion examined it closely. So it ran off a battery and played music... Ion had designed gadgets before - even tried to build some of them. And this couldn't be that complicated - it was small and it didn't even move.

"Maybe I could get the battery out and we could call for help," he suggested, but at Bri's look of horror, regretted it immediately.

"You want to _take my pod apart_?" she squealed. "Poor baby pod!"

"Bri's sanity _depends_ on that pod!" Betty put in, and Tybalt fidgeted with his gun holster, pretending not to hear the conversation.

"If it's got a battery, and we need one," Lister reasoned, "then it's worth a try."

"But it's the wrong sort..."

"All we'll need is a few wires and whatever makes the electricity."

"It could save our lives!" Craig interrupted. Bri scowled, and Ion apparently took that as a yes. He unplugged the white earphones, handed them back to Bri and took the iPod, getting up and going to sit beside Silver and fiddle with the little music player.

"Stupid chicken," Bri growled, grabbing another biscuit.

"Hey - we're rationing that!" 'Du exclaimed, and Claire looked around guiltily, stuffing the rest of her third biscuit in her mouth.

"Oh, it'll last. We'll get rescued soon - the search party'll be arriving later."


	4. No self control

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from Peter Gabriel's "No Self Control".

Yah! A review! One word, from my sister of limited vocabulary...

* * *

_Bri's going to kill me_, Ion thought miserably. _Bri will never forgive me for this. Bri will go mad... _The earthperson stared glumly at the little gadget in front of him - once a reliable pink iPod, now...now, he wasn't sure what it was. Sure, he had designed gadgets before. Large things, practical things - things with an obvious purpose. Even if no-one else could figure them out, at least it was clear the way everything fitted together. But this "iPod"...

_I've never seen anything like it_, he thought, marvelling again over the tiny parts that all fitted together and didn't even move when the pod worked. Weren't things supposed to move? Wheels, cogs, pistons, noisy metal stuff... He poked a bit of wire into the back of the pod and moved it around in circles, making an irritating little clicking noise. That was all it did now, by the looks of it. What he'd thought must be the battery was connected to so many other things that it was impossible to figure out where the power came from, and when he'd tried to put it back together, it no longer did what it was supposed to do. Apart from the clicking.

"Ticktickticktickticktick..."

Silver, unconscious beside him with the thickest blankets available to cover him, moved slightly and murmured something, and Ion, startled, accidentally jammed the wire.

"...ticktickticktickTOCK!" the pod said, and stopped. Ion pulled the bit of wire, which came out with a small bit of pink plastic attached to the end.

_Now I've **really** done it_... He glared at Silver, who was once again so still he might have been dead. The boy wore makeup somewhat similar to Craig's, except thicker and blacker around the eyes, giving them a rather hollow appearance when open, but it was now smudged down his pale cheeks and rubbing off in places.

Outside, everyone else was collecting snow in cups, except for Betty, whose burns on her feet prevented her from moving outside the wreckage of the plane. She was asleep, by the looks of her, dark hair fallen back off her face to reveal raw, red, burnt flesh on one cheek. The others would bring the snow inside and melt it down by holding it for water...and it would be then, sitting around trying to melt their ice, that Bri would demand her pod. Ion shivered, not just from the cold, and again peered closely into the little electronic marvel.

Bri was not the first to come back inside, to Ion's relief. That peculiar little person hidden behind their white mask, carrying a large jug of snow. He or she set it down beside the bag of Anzac biscuits (more empty than it should have been), sat down and took a white mouse out of its pocket. It then put one gloved hand into the bag, but instead of taking a biscuit, took merely a crumb, which it gently passed to the mouse. Suddenly, there was a burst of talking as everyone else began to pile inside.

"...and - oh my _freakin'_ Jesus, I wish I had that DVD!" Keren was exclaiming loudly to 'Du.

"I _know_!" 'Du agreed enthusiastically. "I watched-"

"Oh - is that the Panic! box set?" Betty appeared to have woken up at the noise, and was suddenly immersed in the conversation. Bri, Ion noticed, was listening to Jack and hadn't looked his way yet.

"But Will - now he had two swords..."

"You had a sword?"

"Pirate." Jack fumbled under his coat and unsheathed a thin, steel sword while Bri looked on in awe. "And a pistol - with a single shot."

Vedhix had come in last, and was shaking snow off the black cloak he wore. He set down several cups of snow and sat beside them, opposite the person with the mouse, whom he glared at.

"You're giving a mouse our rations," he said coldly. The person wordlessly looked at him while the white mouse in its hand obliviously nibbled the crumb.

"We could _die_ out here, you know that?" Vedhix continued. "We could all starve - and what are you doing? Stealing what food we have for a _mouse_!"

"Ooh! What's happening?" Bri asked Ham.

"Whatsit's been pinching biscuits, I think."

"Who's...oh. Whatsit."

"Answer me!" Vedhix ordered. He seemed to be getting quite angry now, and his hands were tightened into fists. The newly dubbed 'Whatsit' stood up, putting the mouse back in its pocket, but still did not answer Vedhix, only infuriating him further. Vedhix had grown up in a society where he, as a member of a wealthy family, was supposed to be respected. People _always_ answered him when spoken to...well, perhaps not him so much, but his father and brother certainly, and they wouldn't have stood for this kind of disrespect.

"And don't even think about waving that knife at me!" Vedhix spat, and 'Whatsit' gave an almost imperceptible shake of its head. This must have been the last straw, as Vedhix suddenly snapped. In a movement almost too quick for any of the people watching to follow, he darted forwards, grabbing Whatsit's wrists and slamming him or her back against the wall of the plane.

"Smack him one...uh...Whatsit!" Ham yelled out, but 'Whatsit', pinned against the wall with its feet about a foot above the ground, was unable to move.

"Jeez. Psychopath," Betty muttered to Bri. Guenittia shrieked something and covered her face with her hands, and Lister pushed his way forwards and grabbed Vedhix by the shoulders, pulling him back. Vedhix was staring straight ahead with eyes so wide that the whites could be seen around them, but when his grip was released on Whatsit's wrists, his eyes returned to normal and his hands dropped to his sides. 'Whatsit' dropped to the ground and fell to its knees.

"You O.K.?" Claire asked. Whatsit nodded and stood up slowly and shakily, rubbing its wrists.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lister yelled at Vedhix, shaking him by the shoulders.

"You could have killed him...her..." Guenittia sniffed. She looked scared and shocked - she was the only one there who knew anything about Necromancy, so she was the only one who had recognized the real danger that Whatsit had been in.

"A dishonourable fight," Tybalt added.

"Yeah - at least pick on someone your own size," Lister said disgustedly, pushing Vedhix away from him. Vedhix said nothing. He hung his head, ashamed, and shuffled out of the plane and into the snow without daring to meet anyone's eyes.

"_You could have killed..._" Yes, he could have, and he knew it all too well. Except that this time, it wasn't him wearing the gloves - so it was another close call. But too many close calls, and someone was going to get hurt. All it took was just something to get on his nerves - taunting, disrespect, anything - and that deep, subconscious instinct that came with being a Necromancer would take over and he would be unable to stop himself from attacking.

"_A dishonourable fight..._"

"_...someone your own size..._" Not that it would have made much difference if the so-called 'Whatsit' had been more than four foot tall! Necromancers were the most powerful Mages in Chaos, and even if that tiny, masked person had been another Chaotic Mage, he or she wouldn't have stood a chance.

_I have to control myself...somehow_, Vedhix vowed to himself. _I'm stuck here with these people, and I can't let them get on my nerves..._ He took a deep breath and strode back into the plane. Inside, everyone was sat round in a circle, chatting in little groups. Vedhix did not dare join the circle, so he sat on a suitcase at the back and tried to avoid people's attention. Claire, talking to Jack, reached out for the bag of biscuits.

"Hey! You've had yours for today!" Craig snapped.

"Aw, just one more," Claire pleaded, picking up the bag. Craig grabbed it off her and rolled the top up.

"I thought we were rationing. Look - it's already over half empty," he said.

"Claire was eating them earlier," Guenittia offered unhelpfully, and Claire turned red.

"It was just a few..."

"'Just a few' could have been our meals for the next few days unless we get rescued!" Craig yelled. "You've got even less self-control than Vedhix!" Vedhix glared at Craig, who didn't appear to have even noticed he was inside the plane, but forced himself to remain calm. Betty, who had been watching the argument with some interest, nudged Bri.

"You got your pod, Bri?" Ion froze. Suddenly, he felt cold all over, and a knot of dread was forming in his stomach.

"Nah - Ion's still got it," Bri replied. "Eh Ion - can we have my pod back?"

"Yes...yes, it's...right here," Ion stammered, turning around and hastily clipping the pink shell of the pod back together. He turned it over and nearly dropped it when he saw the big chip of plastic missing from just beside the wheel - where he had gotten the wire caught earlier. "Couldn't find the battery - wrong sort. Oh, and...uh...it's kind of...someone must have been fiddling with it, I think." He tossed the pod across the plane to Bri, who yelped

"Don't throw it!" But when she saw the chunk of plastic missing, and then tried to turn it on but received no response except a few clicks, she tossed it to Betty and crossed the plane towards the guilty-looking Ion, who quailed.

"What did you _do_ to it!" she exclaimed. "Weren't you just going to open up the back and get the battery out? It's an iPod Mini - you can't even get them any more! Craig said you were a smart guy - chatting to him on the flight about all these..._things_ you'd invented! You've _destroyed_ my poor baby iPod!" She was getting more and more worked up, until she was almost screaming, and although the fairly short, terrified earthperson was about half a head taller than her, she seemed to tower over him. When she picked up the bag of biscuits and smacked him with it, he ran, straight through the middle of the group and out the hole at the back of the plane. Bri hurled the bag after him and flopped down beside Betty to mourn her pod, pressing the buttons and running her finger sadly round the wheel. Betty hugged her, and then Keren, Ham and 'Du joined.

"Stupid chicken," she said in a muffled voice.

Lister was sitting beside Whatsit, watching the events unfolding with some irritation. So that was their last hope at getting a battery in the transmitter. Now they were just going to sit and wait, by the looks of things. He picked at a bit of pasta stuck to his shirt and sighed, and Whatsit glanced at him.

"Say - why didn't you defend yourself, mate?" Lister asked. "I mean, I know you weren't pinching all the biscuits - that was Claire." Whatsit shrugged, just a brief movement of the shoulders that Lister nearly missed.

"_Can_ you speak?" he asked, and to his surprise, he received a nod in reply.

"'Course," a voice whispered, and for a moment, Lister thought it was Whatsit - except that it had come from behind him. He turned to see Silver stirring at last, large violet eyes flickering open. He was pale and thin, and still obviously weak - but at least he was awake, and that was a start.

* * *

No iPods were harmed during the writing of this chapter.


	5. In the dark of the night

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from a song from Disney's "Anastasia", called "In the Dark of the Night".

* * *

Awakening in the pitch blackness in the middle of the night, Tybalt Capulet immediately knew something was wrong. He shivered - the sub-zero temperature here was quite a shock after warm, sunny Verona, and he wore only a thin black shirt and black trousers. Oh, and a bulletproof vest, but that wasn't particularly well-insulated. But it wasn't the cold that was the problem. He ran one hand over his face, and his fears were confirmed.

_Stubble! What dire peril is this that could devastate my honour?_ That once perfectly groomed facial hair - the two elegantly trimmed sideburns with a little curl, a thin moustache and a tiny goatee - were ragged and rough, and he could feel prickly stubble growing. He frantically searched his pockets - a razor blade, a knife, anything - but found nothing except his two prized guns in their holsters, a box of matches and two car keys - Abra and Petruchio were going to kill him if he ever got out of this alive!

_O, I am fortune's fool..._ So what was he to do? Put up with the mess his facial hair was in, hide it somehow or find something to shave with. But one's face was a difficult thing to hide...or was it? Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light somewhat, he caught sight of that odd person the teenagers had called 'Whatsit' - presumably asleep, but sitting up, clutching that sharp, wicked-looking knife in one hand. Tybalt crept over to Whatsit and touched its shoulder lightly, and Whatsit stirred, raising its head and drawing its knees up.

"I beg of thee, lend me thy knife," Tybalt whispered, but Whatsit shook its head.

"If, perchance, I were to borrow thy knife, I would be at the service of thee and thy kin until the debt were repaid," he persisted. Whatsit shook its head again, and mimed Tybalt's intention, running the blade of the knife along its masked cheek.

"...sharp...mmm...long..." a strange voice mumbled, almost inaudibly.

"Thou speakest?" Tybalt exclaimed - rather too loudly, as Guenittia beside them snorted, rolled over and opened her eyes.

"Who's there?" she yawned sleepily.

"'Tis I," Tybalt replied.

"Oh. I tawt I heard a puddy tat," Guenittia said, and rolled back over to go to sleep. At any other time, Tybalt would have considered this a mortal insult and vowed to defend his honour - but the girl was asleep, it was the middle of the night and she would only be teasing him again later. He turned back to Whatsit, took another look at the knife and realized what he or she was telling him - the knife was too big and sharp to shave with. Even if he didn't end up slitting his own throat, he would make such a mess of the job that there wouldn't be any point.

"Then thy mask?" he asked, wondering if Whatsit would speak again. But all he received in reply was another shake of the head, and he decided there was no point in pushing the matter.

"Peace be with thee," he said and crept back to his place.

Just a short distance away, someone else was awake, and listening to the whispered, rather one-sided conversation - someone sitting in the shadows right at the back of the plane, where even the Prince of Cats could not see in this light. Betty had awoken just a few minutes earlier - the pain from her burns didn't let her get much sleep anyway. She heard someone moving around, then about a minute later, Tybalt getting up, asking Whatsit for the knife, a long pause and Tybalt's surprise - Whatsit _spoke_? Now, Tybalt was back in his place and whoever had been moving before him was now shuffling around again. There was a loud clang, a few stifled curses, and the person was making their way back to their place - but not before Betty had had time to recognize the voice and smell the sharp odour of rum as the person sat back down.

_Jack Sparrow...he's got rum? Why didn't he tell us? Wait...I should feel left out..._ Betty fished around in the side pocket of her bag beside her and brought out something thin, hard and cold, which she ran her fingers carefully over. A razor blade - practically the only thing she had with her now, and certainly an invaluable possession. She brushed her hair low over her face and held the blade close to her wrist...

_I would be getting so many MySpace comments about now..._

...and then replaced it back in her bag, just as the whole plane was lit up in a flickering, orange light - Tybalt had just lit a match. He had heard the shuffling around and cursing from Jack, who was clearly up to something - but it was not Jack he saw when he lit the match. Betty was the only one awake now...and was that a _razor blade_ she was putting in that bag? He made sure the light did not illuminate his own face too much and held it out, looking around the plane.

"What are you doing?" Betty called in a whisper, but the match burned out and once again, everything was so pitch black she couldn't see her hand in front of her face.

The group were awoken just before dawn the next morning by the distinctive clinking of Tybalt's metal-heeled boots striding across the plane. He stopped, pushed aside some of the suitcases blocking up the hole, glanced around and hurried out quickly when he saw people starting to sit up, blinking blearily.

"Oh my god, is he, like, a cowboy or something?" Keren complained. "Does he have to wear those stupid boots?"

"I know!" 'Du agreed earnestly. "Can't we make him, like, tie bags on his feet or something?"

"Ha, shame!" Ham laughed. "That'd be awesome!" She ran her hands through her hair, which she had been doing all too often these past two days - it was getting steadily wavier. In fact, she could almost swear it hadn't been this curly even when she was six!

"Aah, I _really_ need to straighten my hair!" she exclaimed.

"Same," Bri said. "My fringe is going all...mneh!"

A gust of wind picked up outside, rattling the windows of the plane and whipping the powdery snow up into little flurries which came in through the doorway-hole in the stack of luggage and seats.

"Will _someone_ shut the door?" said Craig sleepily, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"It's _freezing_," Guenittia moaned. She was still wearing Craig's gothic trenchcoat - much as she disliked it, she was almost freezing as she was, and miserable. She had had to survive off nothing more than two biscuits a day and melted snow for the past two days now, what remained of her makeup was smudged and patchy, and her hair was a tangled mess. At least it was naturally straight though, she thought, looking at Ham and Bri. Betty was rifling through her bag, unzipping pockets and turning it upside-down.

"Can we have some light, anyone?" she said. Lister produced a squashed box of matches and used one to light a pile of paper napkins from the trolley. Grateful for both the light and heat, everyone gathered around it in a circle, except Betty who kept her distance from the fire but rechecked all the pockets of her bag in the light.

"Anyone seen my razor blade?" she asked.

"What - that one you were waving around yesterday morning?" said Craig.

"Yeah - did you actually take it?"

"What would I want with your stupid razor blade? Why don't you ask someone who has a thing about sharp things?" He gave a rather obvious sideways glance at Whatsit, who was examining the blade of its own knife and looked up, the red lenses of its goggles reflecting the flickering firelight. But Betty had just realized something - sure, Whatsit might have a thing about sharp things, but it was someone else who was asking for that sharp thing last night. And that person was up and about before it was even light and outside...doing what?

"Where's Tybalt?"

"Tybalt won't have taken it - he's not emo," Bri pointed out.

"Jeez, a razor blade isn't _just_ for being emo!" Ham exclaimed.

"Isn't it for, like, shaving?" said Keren.

"Maybe the stupid chicken took it?" Bri suggested. "I mean, he likes _destroying_ things!" She gave Ion a glare which probably could have made even Tybalt back down, but Ion was peering out the window and didn't notice, to Bri's annoyance.

"Weather won't be so good today," he commented.

"Not like you can tell," Guenittia snorted. "The sun's not even up."

"Does that mean we're not getting rescued yet?" Cilla demanded. "How long are we going to be stuck here?"

"Long...too long," Silver sighed. There was a clinking sound behind him - Tybalt had just re-entered the plane, brushing snow off his shirt.

"Eh Tybalt - you seen my razor blade anywhere?" Betty called out to him.

"Thy razor blade? Nay," he replied. But Betty couldn't help noticing that his facial hair was once again perfect - even if one of the sideburns was a little longer than the other and the tiny goatee slightly off-centre.

_Must be as hard to shave without a mirror as it is to put on makeup_, she thought. Lister was lighting a cigarette from the fire and offered the box around, but only Tybalt accepted. Leaning casually against the side of the plane, he stuck the cigarette in his mouth and deftly drew his two guns from their holsters. He spun one around in his hand a few times and fired a shot at the luggage rack on the ceiling, breaking a piece of plastic off, and then with the other gun, shot the fragment before it hit the ground.

"Showoff," several people could be heard to mutter.

"Cool," several other people muttered.

"Random," Claire said. Betty made no comment. She was watching Tybalt closely, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"He _so_ took my razor blade," she whispered to Ham.

"Yeah, I'll say," Ham replied, also watching Tybalt who was now cleaning one of his guns, clicking the safety on and off.

"Don't shoot in here!" said Cilla. "What if you hit one of us?"

"I see thou knowest me not," Tybalt replied, and in a movement so swift even Vedhix would have been pushed to match it, he clicked the gun in his hand together, spun it around and fired straight into the group sitting around the fire. There was a shower of sparks from somewhere, Guenittia squealed and Ham and Silver swore. Whatsit had been holding its knife up, examining the blade, and the bullet had struck the blade and ricocheted away above Whatsit, who dropped the knife in shock and fell back. Lister stood up and grabbed the gun off Tybalt.

"It's _dangerous_, mate," he hissed. "What if Whatsit hadn't been wearing gloves? What if he or she'd moved the knife? What if someone had moved forwards in the way?" Lister flicked the safety back on the pistol, pocketed it and sat back down. Tybalt remained standing in the cloud of smoke from his cigarette, his pride preventing him from asking for his gun back, joining the group or apologizing to Whatsit. Jack caught his eye and slowly drew his own pistol - much larger and older-looking, and not as elegant as Tybalt's - from his belt and began checking it over, rubbing specks of dust from the barrel.

"He's got rum," Betty told Ham under her breath. Ham looked interested.

"Rum? As in, proper alcohol rum?"

"Yup." Ham mulled this thought over for about half a second before saying

"We could pinch it."

"We could..." said Betty slowly. "We could..." An idea was starting to form in her head - an idea involving Jack, the rum, Tybalt and a certain razor blade...


	6. Something kind of hit me today

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from David Bowie's "We Are The Dead".

* * *

_Partners in crime..._ Yep, it sounded good.

_Rum..._ that sounded even better.

_Emo razor blade..._ well, Betty thought that sounded the best of all. Ham wasn't fussed either way about that, really. That was the long-term goal, apparently. The short-term goal was what she was in the plot for - the rum. But Jack Sparrow's rum, of all people! The quick-thinking, swaggering buccaneer wasn't going to let that rum out of his sight for an instant. And he had a sword, and a pistol if it still had that single shot in it...

The plan was simple. They somehow get the rum off Jack, and using it as a kind of alcoholic hostage, blackmail Jack into getting the razor blade back off Tybalt. Then, the rum - or most of it at least - would be returned to Jack. Ham wasn't so keen on that last bit. And anyway, as they had heard Jack mention many times, the "pirates' code" was only really guidelines, and it wouldn't apply to them, since they weren't pirates.

The sun still hadn't risen yet, even though it had been at least an hour since they awoke. Snow had started to fall outside some time ago, and it was getting heavier as they watched - true to Ion's prediction, a blizzard seemed to be blowing up, and inside the plane, the sixteen survivors sheltered wrapped in blankets against the penetrating cold.

"I'm cold," Guenittia whined for the sixth time. "Look - my lips are turning blue!"

"His feet are blue," said Keren, gesturing to Ion who looked annoyed.

"He's a stupid chicken - his feet are always blue," Bri snorted. Ion scowled at her and tossed another handful of paper napkins on the meagre fire. He had only just gotten to sleep last night when he was awoken by Tybalt leaving, and was tired and irritable as well as cold and hungry. They were running out of food, the weather was only getting worse, there was no hope of being rescued in a blizzard, they hadn't even seen any search planes yet...

"If, perchance, a plane-" Tybalt began, but was cut off.

"There is no plane," Ion snapped. "And there won't be today, not in these clouds. How would they see us? A skyperson couldn't fly in this, let alone a plane."

"Skypeople?" Cilla interrupted, smirking. Ion pulled a face.

"Stupid people...always complaining about something. 'How come you get this', 'Why can't we have that'..."

"Sounds like my sister," said Claire, and there were a few chuckles from Bri and Ham. "Do you have one?"

"A sister? Oh, I've got a sister," Ion replied. "Name's Sofia. Funny, really - she wouldn't hear a word against the skypeople the other day. 'They're not that bad', she said. Father got really angry..."

"The daughter of my father's sister..." Tybalt put in.

"Your cousin?" Claire interrupted, but Tybalt ignored her.

"...her name is Juliet. She, as a maid of the House of Capulet, would have naught to do with our foes, the Montagues. But only the dawn of our parting, she quarrelled with me - saying she wished no ill fortune on those dogs of the House of Montague!"

"What'd he say?" Claire whispered to Whatsit, and then changed her mind and asked Keren, who shrugged.

"Basically, he reckons his cousin's had enough of fighting with the Montagues," Betty explained. "And same with Ion's sister and the skypeople, by the sound of it."

"Oh. Random."

Throughout this conversation, Betty had been trying desperately to meet Ham's eyes, but Ham seemed to be deliberately avoiding looking at her. Had she given up on this idea of getting Jack's rum, then? Or had she just not noticed Betty and was immersed in the conversation - they were discussing Silver's little sister now.

Ham knew perfectly well that Betty was trying to catch her attention. But those burns on her face - they were _so_ disgusting! They were hidden by her hair most of the time, and this morning it had been too dark to see anything clearly, but now it was a bit lighter and they had the fire, every time her hair moved, Ham would catch a glimpse of the burnt, blistered skin and suddenly find herself wishing she hadn't eaten that stale Anzac biscuit that morning.

"Ham," Betty hissed, kicking her back. Ham swore in her head and shuffled back so she was sitting beside Betty.

"How we going to get that rum, then?" Betty asked quietly.

"I dunno."

"Seriously. I mean, we can't exactly just ask him for it, can we?"

"Don't see why you can't just ask Tybalt for your razor blade back."

"He says he doesn't have it."

"Oh _man_!"

"I know you are."

Back in the main group, the conversation had now moved onto Bri's relatives. Whatsit, as usual, had been merely listening, fiddling with its single rationed biscuit which it hadn't eaten yet. It took the white mouse out of its pocket and broke off a bit of the biscuit for the mouse, which attacked the food.

"Hey - let's see that mouse," said 'Du, holding out her hand. Whatsit took the biscuit from the mouse and held out its hand to pass the mouse to 'Du, who took it carefully and peered at it with Keren and Bri leaning over her shoulder to see.

"That is one seriously ugly mouse!" Keren exclaimed.

"Oh my god, ew!" said Bri.

"It's quite a...big mouse, isn't it?" 'Du observed. "Sure it's not a rat?"

"Nah - it's too small," Bri pointed out, making room so Claire could see.

"Aww! It's cute!" Claire cooed. "Can I hold it?"

"If you can tell us whether it's a rat or a mouse," said 'Du, handing it over.

"Well rats have more toes on their front feet and longer bottom teeth and bald tails..."

"What does that one have, then?" said Keren. Claire touched the tail and the rodent jumped and turned around, curling its tail beneath itself.

"Sort of really thin hair," Claire answered. "Not as bald as a rat, but not as hairy as most mice. Random." She tried to examine its front toes, but it jumped again and pulled back, and when she put a hand over it to pick it up, it wriggled free, jumped down from Claire's hand and scampered across the plane to the wall of luggage and seats.

"Far out!" said Claire. "Techy mouse!"

"Or rat," said Keren.

"Wants to be identified even less than its owner!" Silver laughed, and then coughed weakly and shivered.

"You sure you're O.K., mate?" Lister asked, concerned - Silver still hadn't recovered completely after spending over a day unconscious.

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine...are you going to get that mouse back?" he replied. Claire, 'Du, Keren and Bri were already poking around in the pile where the mouse had gone, and Lister, Silver and Whatsit joined them. Ham and Betty, however, were deep in thought.

"Ooh, I know!" Betty said suddenly, glancing around to make sure no-one else was listening. "Jack's a pretty light sleeper, right?"

"Yeah...except if he's drunk, I should think. But then he'd drink our rum."

"So we can't just pick his pockets or something. So we pick someone else's pockets - someone who's a heavier sleeper. A very heavy sleeper." Ham knew instantly, and threw Lister a surreptitious glance. Lister, who had kept several of the group awake the first night with his snoring, was on his hands and knees searching, and as Ham watched him, reached around to hitch up his trousers and scratch, and then stuck his finger in his ear.

"Eww."

"Eww..."

"Can't find that mouse," Keren announced. "Sorry..."

"Why don't we set the cat onto it?" Guenittia suggested, jerking her thumb at Tybalt behind her back.

"Nah - what if he eats it?" said Bri.

"Thou art mocking me," Tybalt hissed to Guenittia, who smirked. "The law would be on my side if we were but here, and I would set a challenge on thy life. Thy-"

"A challenge on 'er life?" Cilla interrupted. "You ought to be locked up, you!"

"What - dare thee to scorn me? To strike thee dead, I would hold it not a sin."

"Thy stock and honour is befitting, Prince of Cats, but I fear a mutiny among our company may cause much damage," Betty called out. There was a stunned silence.

"Then for this time, I do thee no disparagement," Tybalt said to Guenittia. "But thy mocking shall not be endured again." Guenittia barely noticed - she was staring at Betty, along with most of the other occupants of the plane. But Betty seemed unaware that she had done anything out of the ordinary and resumed her conversation with Ham.

By that evening, it was clear that the mouse was nowhere to be found. Various apologies were made to Whatsit, who accepted them in stony silence - nothing less than any of them had expected, but Guenittia was still offended. She had been reluctant to apologize in the first place, saying "it's only a mouse." When she was finally pressured into it, her apology was no more than a brief "sorry" called over her shoulder, and when she received an eyeless stare in reply, she pointedly turned away and swore under her breath.

"Why bother talking to that one at all, really?" she muttered.

"It's just the way things work," Lister replied. "You talk to Tybalt, you can expect to understand less than half of the answer; you talk to Claire, you can expect the word 'random' to pop up somewhere; you talk to Whatsit, don't expect to receive an answer at all." Tybalt opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by 'Du picking up the bag of biscuits and shaking it. Their evening meal - somewhat stale - was accepted gratefully by everyone except Whatsit, who sat a short distance away from the group, completely motionless and staring at the pile of luggage and seats where the unidentified rodent had been sighted last.


	7. Do as I say, don't do as I do

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from Genesis's "Jesus, He Knows Me".

* * *

Dusk wasn't much darker than the rest of the day had been, with the blizzard still raging outside and thick grey clouds covering the sky. In the gathering gloom, Jack could barely make out the Spot on his palm. Still, no-one else would be able to either. He turned his hand this way and that, the large elaborate rings on his fingers catching the light of the embers. At least being stuck here did have its one advantage - avoiding he whom the Spot marked him for. Davy Jones may have a Kraken, a crew of doomed souls and most likely the ability to lay claim to all the rum in the Caribbean, but there was one thing he didn't have, and that was Jack. And now Jack was stuck on a mountain in a blizzard. Ironic, that. He wasn't entirely sure where he would be better off. Perhaps Singapore... But he had his rum here, or what little remained of it.

There was a sigh from beside him - Ion, still awake, and far too observant for Jack to sneak off now. And there were already a couple of people creeping about.

Little did Jack know that his life was about to rapidly take a turn for the worse. Lister had been snoring loudly since, with nothing to do but wait and hope, the group had decided to settle down for the night, and Ham and Betty were right beside him. Ham, by a majority of one, had been elected pickpocketer - after all, how many times had she pinched the belts off the back of peoples' blazers at school?

"Eww, his shirt is so _disgusting_!" Ham whispered.

"Is that _pasta_ stuck to it?" answered Betty.

"There's food stuck to it? Oh my god - I think I saw him _eating_ that earlier! Ewewewewew!"

"He _ate_ it? Well, he's really going to need those indigestion tablets then. Go on - get them!"

"Do I have to?"

"If we're going to get that rum." Ham sighed, gritted her teeth and reached for Lister's pocket. Suddenly, Lister grunted and snorted in his sleep. Ham and Betty both jumped, and Ham swore.

"What if he wakes up?"

"He won't wake up. He sleeps heavier than Cookie." Once again, Ham reached for Lister's pocket. Slowly and carefully, she slid her hand inside.

"Eww...ewewewewEW!"

"You got them?"

"Eww, there's something slimy...oh, got them." She withdrew her hand from Lister's pocket, the nearly empty packet of indigestion tablets held by the tips of her index finger and thumb. A lump of chewed, grey gum was stuck to one corner. Ham and Betty glanced at each other, and then at the packet and gum, and finally at Lister, still sleeping like a log. Then, they turned and walked silently back towards their places.

"So now we wait 'til tomorrow," said Ham, pocketing the tablets.

"Yep, pretty mu- ack!" Betty's foot had caught on something - or someone, who kicked out. Betty stumbled and caught herself on Ham who, startled, swore and nearly fell over herself.

The someone was Ion, who had finally fallen asleep before being painfully awoken. He rubbed his ankle with one hand and his eyes with the other, and peered around, but it was now almost pitch black and if the person was still there, he could not see who it was.

_This is ridiculous_, he thought angrily. _I'm here, worrying about who's waking me up, when I could be trying to find a way out of this. We can't survive much longer if this weather gets any worse...the food'll run out...I have to _do_ something! But what..._

Down the other end of the plane from the worrying Ion, Silver had also awoken. For a few moments, his whole mind felt fuzzy, and it was a struggle to remember where he was. Then he remembered - and with the familiar sense of despair came the realization that despite the temperature having most likely dropped below zero, he was burning hot. He tried to sit up to push his blankets off, but a sharp pain throbbed behind his eyes and he felt sick. Before he had even started to lie back down again, white spots swam before his eyes, and faded into blackness as he passed out.

To the dismay of Claire, the last of the biscuits had been eaten the previous evening.

"Oh, I _hate_ airplane peanuts!" she complained when 'Du tossed her a packet from the trolley.

"There's nothing else - just eat them," Ion snapped. He had spent another anxious night without sleep, and could barely keep his eyes open.

"Far out, keep your hair on!" Claire exclaimed.

"What's a matter with 'im?" Cilla demanded. "'E looks like death warmed up!"

"So does Craig," said Keren. "Oh, wait - he looks like that on purpose."

"Is that another one of your 'emo' things?" Guenittia asked. Keren gave her a blank look. "Oh, never mind - hey, Silver's still asleep." She leaned over and shook his arm.

"Gerrarfrrmmm," he mumbled, pulling his arm away.

"Oi, wake up!" She grabbed for his arm again, but his jacket sleeve was pulled up a short way and as soon as her fingers touched his bare arm, there was a loud snapping noise. Silver gasped, opened his eyes and jerked his arm away; Guenittia squealed; 'Du jumped and dropped her peanuts.

"No...touchy..." said Silver, sitting up slowly and wincing.

"Oops," Guenittia muttered, and then when her head was turned away from him, "Stupid Electromancers."

"Electromancer?" Vedhix asked.

"You know, like, electricity," Guenittia answered. "He makes electricity. Duh."

"So an Electric Mage?"

"Electric Mage? That's, like, a hundred years old. They're called Electromancers now, duh." Vedhix appeared annoyed, and was about to reply when Ion interrupted.

"Hang on - he makes electricity?"

"I am sitting right here, you know," Silver put in. "And no, I can't make the radio work. Already tried."

"Well, I don't see why not," said Ion. "I mean, you-"

"What about my poor baby pod?" Bri interrupted. "Could you make that work?" Silver took a breath and blinked several times as if trying to clear his vision, and for the first time, they noticed that he did not appear at all well. His violet eyes were bright, pink stood out on his cheeks while the rest of his face was oddly pale, and he was shivering - nothing new, except that despite the cold, his wild hair was damp and plastered to his forehead with sweat.

"He's not doing anything," Lister announced. "We'll get the radio working after...uh..." While he had been speaking, his hand had moved to his pocket in a subconscious movement, but apparently not finding what he had been feeling for, he trailed off and began searching his pockets frantically. Conversations gradually resumed, and only Ham and Betty's attention was focused on Lister.

"Oh _smeg_..." he groaned. Betty stood up and moved over to stand behind him, and Ham followed.

"Bet I know what you're looking for," Betty whispered to Lister and rustled the packet of the indigestion tablets in her pocket. Lister sat bolt upright and turned - just in time to see Betty and Ham disappearing into the air-hostesses' little room where the trolleys had once been kept. He glanced around, but no-one's attention seemed to be on him, and followed.

"What in smeg's name-" he began angrily, but Betty fixed him with a glare made even more intimidating by the way she leaned back against the counter, hair partly hiding her face, and gestured to Ham, who pulled the curtain shut behind him.

"So," she said. "We have something you want. Something you would most likely need if we had chicken vindaloo and peppermint icecream. And you can do something for us." She pulled the packet slowly out of her pocket and rustled it again, slowly, tantalisingly... "But there's a blizzard out there. Wouldn't it be unfortunate if I went out and it just...slipped...out of my pocket?" Lister sighed and slumped against the cupboard behind him. He was defeated, then - although he could probably pound Betty, if Ham didn't pound him back, he would have to explain himself to everyone else, and he dreaded to think what they would say - beating up a teenage girl over a packet of indigestion tablets?

"What do you want me to do, then?"

When Lister stepped back out into where the group were, he felt oddly relieved. The little packet was back where it belonged, in his pocket, and his instructions were simple and sounded fair. He had absolutely no idea what Betty and Ham could be up to, nor why they had done what they had - but part of the deal had been to keep his mouth shut, and Lister kept his word. Now all he had to do was wait...

He didn't have to wait long - Betty and Ham were heading over to Jack Sparrow now...no, they were walking past him, to Ion who had just called them over.

"We need reflective things," he was instructing them. "Shiny things. When this blizzard's over, we can signal if a plane goes past."

"What do we have so far?" Lister asked.

"Cilla and Guenittia have compact mirrors in their handbags, Whatsit over there has that knife, Craig has metal bits and pieces all over him and Jack's got a sword."

"Well, I _did_ have a razor blade," Betty sighed with a sideways glance at Tybalt. Lister poked through his pockets and produced a crumpled piece of tinfoil with unrecognizable food scraps stuck to it.

"I haven't had a chicken sandwich in ages!" he exclaimed.

"Hmm...it's not really reflective enough," Ion decided, trying to avoid looking at the mouldering rubbish.

"Nope, don't have anything then." Betty turned to walk away, and only Ham caught the glint in her eye and signalling wink. Without a moment's hesitation, Ham stepped sideways, grabbed the leather tricorn hat off Jack's head and dodged away from him with all the skill of a netballer and experienced hat-stealer.

"Shot, Ham!" Betty congratulated her.

Jack froze on the spot (he had been fondly running his fingers over the rum in his pocket). Not the hat! A pirate wasn't himself without his effects, and that hat had survived so much with him - being marooned on islands, being imprisoned in Port Royale..._no-one_ touched the hat! He sprung to his feet and whipped out his pistol, aimed straight at Ham. Suddenly, all eyes were turned their way. The prospect of an honourable duel interested Tybalt - although technically it was highly dishonourable, as Ham was an unarmed lady and Jack had not formally challenged her.

_This could be interesting_, Craig was thinking. _Like something you'd see in a movie, really_. He was quite confident Jack wouldn't shoot, and watched with interest.

"Oh...my...god..." Bri, Keren and 'Du breathed in unison.

_Serves him right, pompous "pirate"_, Guenittia thought. But she kept this thought to herself - Jack did have a gun, after all.

"The hat, if you please," Jack ordered, pistol held steadily. Ham turned the hat over in her hands, looking it over, and then passed it to Betty who did the same. Jack's aim never left it, following it to Betty.

"If we were on me ship, you'd be marooned for that," he calmly informed her, but she ignored him. He rolled his eyes in exasperation, clicked the safety off the pistol and tightened his grip on the antique-looking weapon.

"The hat, if you-"

SMACK! Lister had stepped up behind Jack and delivered a punch to the back of his head. Instantly knocked out cold, Jack fell face downwards on the floor and the pistol clattered over to Cilla's feet, who kicked it away with a look of horror.

No-one said anything to Lister - after all, Jack could well have shot Ham or Betty, and he was doing the safest thing, since trying to grab the gun off Jack could have resulted in an accident. He picked up the pistol, clicked the safety back on and it joined Tybalt's gun in his inner jacket pocket.

_How in smeg's name did all these get through customs?_ he wondered. And Jack still had a sword, Whatsit had that enormous knife, and goodness knows what Cilla could be hiding in her handbag!

Ham and Betty did their best to look relieved - although they had known all along that they were in no danger. And later that day, when the small flask of rum was in Betty's pocket, even the hopeless situation they were in was looking a little brighter.


	8. I'd like to do more than survive

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from the Dresden Dolls' "Good Day".

* * *

Acute iPod withdrawal symptoms. Not good. Actually, Bri was quite surprised they'd taken this long to set in - how long was it now? Two days...two days since that useless, bossy, blue-footed chicken had decided it would be a good idea to dissect the poor baby pod! The warranty certainly wouldn't cover that. Bri sighed sadly and ran her finger around the familiar wheel, pushing the occasional button. The earphones were plugged in and sat comfortably in her ears, but there was no sound coming from them.

"Still not working?" 'Du looked sympathetic, and sat down beside Bri to offer her consolations.

"Stupid chicken..."

"Hey - he was trying to help!" Keren put in defensively.

"No he wasn't," 'Du argued. "He was, like, interfering."

"But if he'd gotten the battery out, we could be home by now."

"But he couldn't. So he just fiddled with it. It's, like, a whole different kind of battery."

"Well he tried!"

"Well...nah! He just likes gadgets."

Ion wasn't as far away from the three teenagers as they thought, and had heard most of the conversation so far. Unfortunately, he thought guiltily, 'Du and Keren were both right. He had been trying to help at first, but after opening the pod up and seeing the intricate mechanism inside, curiosity had gotten the better of him. And it was probably curiosity that had killed the iPod. But when they were home, he would be able to build things far bigger and more impressive than that little pod. Enormous machines of cogs and wheels...machines that could do the work of a hundred people. And he wouldn't be getting out thanks to one of these people here - _he_ was going to find the way to be rescued. But how...

Several hours after Lister's punch, Jack regained consciousness, half expecting to find himself in a prison cell - after all, that was what had happened last time. He should really learn to watch his back! But no, he wasn't lucky enough to be in prison. He was still here in the freezing cold wreckage of a plane in the middle of a snowstorm. And there was that odd little person the teenagers called "Whatsit", just next to him, searching in the pile of luggage and seats. Whatsit turned and looked at him, and Jack was on his guard as soon as that knife came up - but the knife was pointed at something that diverted his whole attention: his hat, less than an arm's length away from him! Inside-out, he discovered to his annoyance, but it was there. It was a pity that the observant Whatsit was only four foot tall - Jack would have been pleased to let him or her on his crew. Didn't matter that it didn't talk - they could always find it a parrot! But Jack's generous mood from finding his hat didn't last long. When he stood up and put his hand in his pocket - his empty pocket - his heart nearly stopped.

The rum was gone.

"Why is the rum gone?" he muttered frantically turning out his other pockets and feeling the lining of his coat in case it had slipped through a hole somewhere.

"Where's the rum...?" But no, the rum was no longer on his person. No-one was even supposed to know he had that rum! He glanced nervously at Whatsit, who had more than likely heard him, and was now staring, saying nothing as usual. But Whatsit wasn't exactly going to blab, he reasoned.

"Someone'd have a hard time calling a parley with _you_," he growled, turning to scan the plane for his suspects - those scallywags who hat taken his hat. There they were - Betty and Ham, chatting to Silver, who was huddled wrapped in a blanket looking miserable. Silver said something to them and they both turned to look at Jack. Then, to Jack's surprise, they stood up and headed over to the air-hostesses' cabin, Betty beckoning him to follow and Ham checking to make sure no-one was watching them. Jack followed - not only curiosity led him on, but he was sure now that they had taken his rum. But as soon as he was inside, Ham stepped behind him and pulled the curtain shut. In the gloom, he could see Betty glaring at him from under her dark fringe, leaning against the counter. Clearly, they meant to make some kind of deal with him - and he needed to come out better off. That rum could depend on it.

"I think you know what we have," Betty said quietly. "And I think you'll be rather keen to agree with us considering that." Jack said nothing. He had no idea what their demands could be, and when it involved rum...

"Jack must have been enjoying it, eh Ham?" Betty continued. "Not much left."

"Nah - I reckon we could drink the rest between us," Ham agreed, grinning a rather werewolfish grin with lots of teeth. Was she putting on that grin just for him, Jack wondered. She would make an interesting pirate...

"Pah...parlour...parsay...parsley..." Jack began stammering. It had worked once - why shouldn't it work here?

"I think Jack wants to call a parley with us," Betty observed. "But he's embarrassed to do it himself. Oh well - we're quite happy to keep...it." They played dirty, these two. But Jack couldn't afford to let them keep his rum!

"O.K., parley," he sighed. "Do you know what that means?"

"Oh, we know what it means," Betty replied. "What're your terms, then?"

"Me rum - all of it, in _my_ hand, in the bottle, when I say." Jack was careful to list every condition he could think of - if there was something he missed, any tiny loophole, it could be disastrous. Betty raised her eyebrows.

"And our terms, of course," she said. "You know Tybalt Capulet, don't you? Half disarmed, but he still has one gun and he's a good shot. And he has something of mine...ours - a razor blade. Get me that razor blade back, and once it's in _my_ hand, your terms will be fulfilled."

Jack left the curtained room with more to think about than he'd like. Tybalt had stolen the razor blade but denied he had it, he had a gun and he was agile and a good shot. If it came to a fight, Jack wouldn't like to be against him with just his sword, and his pistol was gone. So he would have to think about this. If Betty and Ham stuck to the Code, they would keep his rum safe until he had done what they asked

Silver was feeling as miserable as he had appeared to Jack. His head hurt, he still felt sick and he wanted nothing more than to be back at home in his warm bed with a hot water bottle. Beside him, Whatsit was sitting looking about as miserable as it could without removing its mask - slouching even more than usual and hanging its head. Silver was glad it was Whatsit, of all people, sitting with him - he wasn't in the mood for any conversation. Cilla's piercing screech at anyone who caught her attention just went right through him, and Claire's endless "random" statements couldn't be tolerated by anyone for long.

"Hey - you two! Stop moping - go out and get some snow to melt!" Ion ordered when he spotted them. He had been sorting out the food, counting the packets of peanuts and checking things off on his fingers.

"Do we have to?" Silver moaned.

"We need to drink, don't we?" Silver sighed and, using the wall behind him for support, somehow dragged himself to his feet. As soon as he looked up, he felt dizzy and put one hand to his head. Whatsit put a gloved hand on his arm, concerned, but he barely noticed, and a moment later, had collapsed.

Seeing what had happened, Ion, Lister and several others rushed over. Ion roughly pushed Whatsit aside and Lister checked Silver's pulse and breathing.

"He's got a fever," he informed them. "Needs to get to a hospital, I should think."

"Well that's not a lot of good now, is it?" Ion retorted. "What do we do for now?"

"Oh smeg..." Lister muttered, racking his brains. "We...uh...we keep him warm, I think. Go grab some spare blankets, Claire, eh?"

"He's really sick," said Guenittia quietly.

"Yes, we know that," Ion answered.

"I mean, _really_ sick. Lister touched him - his Electromancy's gone!" Glances were exchanged, most of them baffled.

"Is that...?" Keren began.

"He's the most powerful Mage in our class!" Guenittia exclaimed. "He knocked out all the electricity in the school once!"

"Random," said Claire, handing the armful of blankets to Lister.

"Ta. So, Guenittia, what you're saying is, if his...magic or whatever...has stopped working, it means it's really serious?"

"Yeah." Guenittia looked and sounded quite upset - after all, she was the only one who had known Silver before, in Cirinadha or wherever they came from. As quickly as possible, Silver was moved to a more comfortable position and covered with a spare blanket.

"Is anyone staying with him?" Ion asked, and several people looked at Guenittia, whose mouth dropped open in shock.

"I...I don't...I wouldn't know..." she stammered. Another hand was raised, and at first, no-one noticed. The hand was lowered, and then raised again holding a large knife.

"You?" said Craig, surprised, stepping back to avoid the knife. Whatsit lowered its hand and turned its head to stare at Craig, who scowled.

"You'll stay with him?" Lister asked.

"Well we'd have to have someone else as well," Ion announced. "Wha-...he...she...they're not going to be able to call us if anything's up."

"Says 'e can speak," said Lister, before realizing how odd that sounded. "I mean..."

"Well they won't, will they?"

"Don't you just hate it when people argue like they're on the phone when they're, like, in the middle of a group?" 'Du interrupted loudly, looking at Keren but watching Ion and Lister out of the corner of her eye.

"I know, eh," Keren agreed, just as loudly, but Ion and Lister took no notice.

"You're being stupid!"

"You're being a smeghead!"

"Why don't _you_ sit with Silver?"

"'Cause I can trust Wha-...them. Why don't you?"

"Far out!" Claire burst out suddenly. "Why do you have to, like, get so techy all the time?"

"Because this smeghead...oh, I give up," Lister shrugged. "If you're so worried, you can sit with Silver." He turned and walked back over to the food trolley, and gradually, the group dispersed. Ham and Betty moved just a short distance away, and when Jack had joined the main group by the trolley and they were sure he wasn't looking their way, Ham muttered to Betty

"Can we try that rum?"

"Try it?"

"Yeah. Just a bit. He won't notice a few sips gone."

"Oh, he will. This is Jack Sparrow we're talking about."

"One sip, then. And what could he do about it?"

"Good point. How about tonight? When it's a bit darker."

"Awesome. Rum."


	9. Buccaneers drowned their sins in rum

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from the Muppets' "Shiver My Timbers".

* * *

Guenittia was glad it was dark. No-one could see you in the dark, and she knew even without a mirror that she looked awful. The red regrowth in her hair that she had hoped to dye right after the flight would be there, and only getting worse. She had no makeup, and having been without a wash for three days, was having a worse breakout than she would ever have thought possible across her forehead. And to top it all off, she was still stuck wearing Craig's gothic trenchcoat, which had started to smell rather peculiar.

She had been a Mage once, she remembered with a pang of regret and anger. Not something as definable as an Electromancer or a Necromancer. She had been a Milyvehn, able to control the world around her with her mind. It wasn't a Cirinahdian power, though, so when she had moved there, she had been registered as a Psychokinetic. Might have been better if she had been in the long run - her Milyvehn power was controlled by the five people who had had it in the past, and they had taken it away from her for "misusing" it. If she had still had it, she could have gotten them rescued by now...they might not even have crashed in the first place...Craig might have asked her for her number...

She fell asleep with the endless possibilities running through her head of what she could have done if she was still a Milyvehn. If she had been awake just a few more minutes, however, she would have been puzzled to hear a voice piping up in the darkness, singing tunelessly and slurring their words.

"Haaaam ish shooo bee-_yoo_-tiful..." A second voice joined them, slightly louder but just as slurred and tuneless.

"Tomaaaato...with a shnail..."

"Like your shnails?"

"Ah...yeah...eh Ham, 'member the Burr shnail?"

"Oh, _Burrrr_!" A stream of expletives followed, getting steadily louder. "Eh Be'y, anyone awake?"

"Nah. Go on - pass the bottle."

"You've 'ad enough!"

"You've 'ad more - gimme!" There was a loud thump, and then Betty swearing. "The rum'sh all gone!"

"You shound like Jack!"

"Do not!"

"Do sho!" They both cracked up laughing, and it was some time before Betty announced

"I need a leak."

"Ya shound like a dude!"

"Do not!"

"Do sho!" They laughed raucously again and staggered to their feet, one of them knocking over a loose suitcase.

"Sh'dark."

"Sh'cold." They stumbled across the plane, humming, and then Betty burst into song again.

"Iamthegirl'nachronishmIamthegirl'nachro- ack!" Betty felt her foot catch on something - someone's foot by the feel of it, and cursed.

_I must be drunk - I'm falling over..._

Ham heard the thump as Betty fell, and stopped. There was the sound of several people shuffling in the darkness, and Keren's voice yawning.

"Oww, get off my foot...Betty? _Betty_!" Vedhix suddenly awoke - they could tell it was Vedhix because of the two glints of red in his eyes, the only thing that could be seen in the pitch blackness.

"Aah, what _is_ that?" he gasped. More people were waking up now and heading over to where Betty had fallen and Ham still stood, confused, and there was a buzz of voices.

"Smeg, what time is it?"

"...sharp...mmm...too sharp...no, no, no..."

"Anyone got some light?"

"I cannot endure this disturbance of the peace! Bring me my sword!"

"...sharp...shouldn't have..."

"What's sharp?"

"Stop touching me!"

"Eww, slashy!" The voices suddenly ceased as a match was lit by Tybalt, who had drawn his single remaining pistol and held it up, along with the match. Most people were sitting down, still rubbing sleep from their eyes. Vedhix, who had never seemed to notice the cold before, was shivering and looked away as the light was passed over towards where the disturbance had originated. Ham stood staring blankly, swaying slightly and with a hand on the wall for balance. Betty was lying face down on the floor, they saw with shock, unmoving, and beside her, Whatsit sat huddled with its face in its hands, shaking its head. Slowly, a feeling of horror spread throughout the group when they saw why - when they noticed the dark stain spreading across the back of Betty's previously new Glassons' top and on the floor around her.

"Wassama'er?" Ham mumbled. "Be'y...?" She stepped forwards, staggered and fell back, and moments later was snoring obliviously.

"What's going on?" Lister demanded. "She looked like she was...drunk or something. And how did...this...happen?"

"Sh-she f-fell on the kn-knife," Vedhix stammered.

"Knife? Do you know what happened?" He addressed Whatsit, who shook its head, looked up, saw that everyone's eyes were on them and turned away again. For a while, no-one said anything. It was dawning on them that someone had actually died, and unless they were rescued soon, more could follow. And death from more expected causes, such as freezing or starvation, would be slow and painful.

Vedhix had felt the death as soon as it happened. He had awoken to a feeling that chilled him to his core, a strange sensation where he could almost feel the darkness as if it were emanating from somewhere. Almost as soon as the words "what is that" had left his mouth, he knew instinctively what it was and was afraid, but not for the same reason as everyone else. Vedhix was afraid because he had felt no hunger, thirst or cold, he had never been sick in his life, and he realized that the life he had absorbed which now showed as the red in his eyes was sustaining him. Even if they weren't rescued and ran out of food, he could not die - he would just be left to stand by, watching and feeling as the others slowly faded away. And then what? He would still be there, alone...as alone as if he were still in exile in Chaos. But in Chaos, he would be at home. Far away as they were now, he could feel the place calling him back; a kind of homesickness that no-one could possibly understand.

A few seconds had seemed to stretch out into minutes before Cilla broke the silence with her usual response. She screamed shrilly and several people jumped. When Tybalt's match fizzled out, several more people screamed, and kept screaming until Lister lit another.

"Let's take Betty outside," Ion suggested to him. "We can figure out the full story tomorrow, when we have some light."

"I think _this_ is the full story," Lister replied, holding up something that they couldn't quite see in the darkness until he held the match to it. An old-fashioned bottle-flask of some sort, which he turned upside-down to show it was empty. Instantly, all eyes were turned on Jack, but from Jack's distraught, dismayed expression, it was clear he wasn't responsible...at least, not entirely. At first, he just stared, and then his face took on the pained look of someone who has just realized they have been betrayed. And he felt betrayed - Ham and Betty had not stuck to the Code, and now the rum was gone for good!

With the help of Jack, Lister picked up Betty's body. Ion moved some of the suitcases and seats to clear a doorway, and as soon as a hole was opened, a freezing blast nearly knocked him off his feet and whipped around the shelter, which had only just started to warm up. Hardly anyone noticed. They stood watching solemnly as Betty was taken outside. Despite the place and their need to hurry because of the temperature, which was dropping rapidly inside, the atmosphere was almost like a funeral.

Jack scurried inside as soon as they had laid the body down, but Lister hesitated. He was holding the knife - he had retrieved it out of respect to Betty and cleaned it in the snow - but was now unsure of what to do with it. On one hand, there could be a fuss if he took it back inside, especially from Betty's friends, whom it might upset; but on the other hand, he didn't have the faintest idea whether its owner would want it back. Eventually, he stuck it in a snowdrift just against the edge of the plane beside the "door" and re-entered. Ion scurried to replace the various things blocking the hole, Tybalt informed them in a worried voice that they had very few matches left, and with that, the group settled back down to try and sleep, one less in number and a good deal less in morale.

* * *

Betty was not harmed during the writing of this chapter. Well, if she was, it was nothing to do with me...namely because while writing her lovely gory death scene, I was sitting in the carpark of the North Harbour Stadium, chatting to Pink Floyd fans and hearing Roger Waters doing soundchecks!


	10. The air is heavy, heavy with truth

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from U2's "Electrical Storm".

* * *

"What was the name of the company?" Cilla asked Ion the next morning.

"Hm?" Ion looked at her blearily. His large eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and he looked like he could barely keep them open, but Cilla took no notice.

"The airplane company. What was it called?"

"Dunno. Why?"

"When I get 'ome, my Les is going to call our solicitor. See 'ow much we can get off 'em. You know - sue 'em or whatever. 'Ow long we been stuck 'ere, then? A week? Two? I could afford meself a nice house in Spain..."

"So you just want to make a few quid out of this?" Craig interrupted. "You don't _care_ that someone's died? You don't care that we could be stuck-"

"It's five days," Ion pointed out. Cilla and Craig both ignored him.

"We're a bit 'ard up, Les an' me," Cilla explained, her voice becoming less loud and screechy and more pitiful and sad. "An' there's my...our...Chesney to think of. 'E'll be worried sick, poor lad."

"So thy family art-" Tybalt began, but Cilla cut him off abruptly.

"Oh shut it, you." She gave him a sour look, her mouth pursing into a tight upside-down U and her over-plucked eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle of her forehead. Tybalt returned the look with a cold stare, and for a brief moment considered hissing at her, before he noticed Guenittia watching him.

Cilla had begun popping peanuts into her mouth, several at a time, and chewing them loudly. She was lost in a daydream of herself lying on a beach in Spain; scorching sun blazing down, giving her a perfectly even tan; Les, probably burnt red as a lobster, and when he wasn't just gazing in adoration at her, she was sending him up to the bar for drinks...champagne, on the house of course.

Something must have been showing on her face, as Craig suddenly stood up, looking furious.

"You're so _selfish_!" he yelled. "You're sitting there, talking about your family that you don't even _care_ about, when there's people here who don't even _have_ a family! And you think you're going to get _money_ from this? Did Betty die so you could weasel a few grand off a multi-million pound company?"

"Multi-million pound?" Cilla's expression became smug, which only infuriated Craig even more. "I could get me more than a few grand, then?"

"You don't get it!" This isn't-"

"Oh shut it," Lister sighed. "You're as whiny as Rimmer when Holly forgets to turn his hair on." Craig turned away and sat down. Tears were pricking in the corners of his eyes, but he made no effort to brush them away. If anything, he blinked hard to encourage them - he didn't care if they saw him upset, and his eyeliner wasn't going to run now; it was gone - in his opinion, just like everything else he had. Just faded away over a matter of a few days...

Through his tear-blurred vision, a movement caught his attention - Whatsit had stood up and was heading over to the pile of luggage, and Craig saw to his horror that it was once again clutching its knife in one hand.

"What've you got that for?" he snapped. Whatsit stopped and turned its head slowly to face Craig, staring in stony silence. Craig paused for a moment, partly glad that Whatsit hadn't argued or snapped back like Cilla might have done, but partly confused as to how to react. Behind the opaque red lenses of those goggles was (probably) a pair of eyes, fixed on him, just waiting for him to do something.

"Is that all you're going to do, then?" he finally exclaimed. "Just stare? You don't even realize, do you? Someone _died_ because of your knife!" When Whatsit still didn't move a muscle, the attention of the rest of the group began to wander. Although there was nothing else to do or watch, Craig might as well have been arguing with a rock for all the direction the conversation was going in!

"Or maybe you do realize - you just don't care!" he continued.

"He says that a lot," Bri observed in a whisper to Jack.

"Random," Claire observed loudly.

"But you just don't care about anyone! You're a stupid, unhelpful, antisocial little freak!" It could have been like water off a duck's back to Whatsit, who remained silent and unmoving, but the rest of the group were evidently still paying some attention.

"Ooh, harsh!"

"Random."

"Thou art verily a want-wit, Craig - thy peevish words would fare better spent on one who would answer to them."

"Aww!"

"Nice one!" The last comment came from Guenittia, and when Craig turned to look at her, she pretended not to notice, picking idly at a hangnail. Far from Guenittia's intentions, however, Craig was annoyed, and made quite a show of ignoring her. She pouted pathetically at him, and felt slightly more hopeful when his glance flickered in her direction - but they were both suddenly distracted when there was a buzzing noise and the overhead reading lights of the plane flickered into life.

"Smeggin' 'ell!" Lister exclaimed. "What the-"

"Silver?" Guenittia called over to him. Silver appeared still unconscious, but was tossing and turning, and mumbling something. The lights flared brighter and dimmer; the seatbelt lights lit up one by one, starting with the ones above him and spreading; over by the upturned food trolley, Bri's broken iPod suddenly began emitting fragments of noises from the earphones; and most startling of all, the radio transmitter was suddenly putting out a lot of static from its little speaker. Most of the group hadn't noticed the radio - they had rushed over to Silver to see if he was all right, but Ion hesitated, his eyes darting between Silver, the radio and the iPod. Finally he grabbed the radio and joined the group, shoving the radio into Lister's hand.

"Get that working, quick!" he hissed. Astonished, Lister took the radio transmitter, and then turned to Guenittia.

"What do we do? I thought you said his...uh, magic...had stopped working."

"I...I don't know. Sometimes it just goes out of control, I think."

"So is that better or worse than it not working at all?"

"I don't know! Look - I only moved to Cirinahda a year ago! You don't get Mages where I'm from!" Lister nodded, and tried to think back to what kind of medical experience he had had in the past - everything from crazy holograms with laser eyes to communicating with sarcastic viruses - but somehow, nothing seemed appropriate. Ion, meanwhile, hadn't finished with Guenittia.

"You're going to know a good deal more than any of us," he was saying. "Think - is it good for him to be doing all this?"

"I...no. No - it'll be using up too much energy. We have to take away anything that can be powered off his electricity. Break these lightbulbs," she decided.

Ion wasn't looking at the lightbulbs - he was eyeing the radio transmitter in Lister's hand. If they got that working, it could be endangering Silver's life... Three loud bangs nearly made Lister drop the radio and everyone else jump about a foot - Tybalt had his one remaining pistol in his hand, and had taken out three of the lights with unerring accuracy. Before he could fire any more shots, however, Silver's eyes opened a fraction. He cried out, covered his face with one arm and threw the other out in front of him, towards the ceiling. The lights flared blindingly bright and exploded in a shower of sharp plastic and sparks, starting with the ones above him and running down the length of the plane.

"...passiveattraction...programmedreaction...passive-" Bri's pod was crackling, before several sparks flew out of the hole beside the wheel and cracks spiderwebbed across the screen. Bri screamed, followed by Keren, Cilla and Guenittia, as everyone ducked and covered their faces from the shards of plastic.

It was over as quickly as it had begun, and everything was so still and silent that they could hear the wind howling outside and whistling through chinks and cracks. Gradually, people uncovered their faces, lifted their heads and looked around. The shattered plastic had gone everywhere, by the looks of it, and a number of people had been hit by it. 'Du would have a few smaller scars to match the half-healed gash across her face, Vedhix had several scratches on his face and hands, Tybalt had a nosebleed again and Whatsit, whose rather unrevealing dress-sense had come in handy avoiding injury, was picking little bits of plastic out of its thick black hair. Most of the plastic had missed Silver, who was now lying still again - in fact, there was an almost clear circle of ground surrounding him. And to Ion's relief, the radio did not seem to have suffered, although it wasn't even giving off static any more.

Only Vedhix stayed out of the arguments which followed about what was to be done about Silver and who was to clear up the broken plastic everywhere. Something was pricking at the edge of his consciousness, an ominous feeling that hovered just at the edge of his senses as though something was threatening him. It wasn't until they were sat around for a pitiful dinner of yet more salted peanuts that he realized what it was - when it came on in a sudden rush, that now almost familiar dark, cold feeling that was his Necromancer's sense of death.

"Silver..." he whispered.


	11. All that you hate, all you distrust

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is another Pink Floyd one, from "Eclipse".

* * *

..._Silver's dead_..._gone_..._why? Cold? _..._mmm_..._yes, cold_..._too cold_..._so cold_..._ Cold_..._hungry_..._mmm_..._how long now? _..._just waiting_..._find us soon, mmm? _..._Betty's gone too_..._not cold, though_..._ My fault_..._my knife_..._mmm_...

"Hey Wha-...uh, hey - couldn't lend us a hand, could you?" Unusually helpful, Keren appeared to have taken it on herself to start shaking all the broken plastic out of the blankets - although it could have been something to do with the uncomfortable night they had just spent, having decided they couldn't be bothered clearing it up the night before. Looking around, it seemed that Whatsit was the only one actually doing something, once again searching among the luggage, but wordlessly, he or she stood up and picked up some of the blankets and torn-off cloth.

..._they think I don't know they call me_..._mmm? _..."_Whatsit_"_, they say_..._nickname, yes_..._interesting_..._mmm_..._never had a nickname_... Little bits of clear plastic fell out of the seat-cover, rattling on the floor like hail, and Craig glowered.

..._wasn't nickname, no_..._malicious_..._doesn't talk, doesn't hear, mmm? _..._taking out anger_..._why? _..._don't know why_..._mmm_..._didn't think_..._unhelpful, mmm?_ Whatsit gave a blue and green inflight blanket a particularly vigorous shake, nearly showering Craig with the sharp fragments.

"Oi! Watch it!" he growled.

"...unhelpful...mmm...antisocial..." There was no tone or emotion in the mumbling, indistinct voice, but it had an effect. Craig's mouth dropped open and he gaped, lost for words.

"So you _do_ have a voice!" Lister grinned, clapping Whatsit on the back so hard that the tiny person nearly lost its balance.

"Oh my god - was that _you_?" said Bri.

"Aw man - I missed it!" Ham sighed. "Go on - say something again!" All at once, there seemed to be a throng of people surrounding Whatsit, congratulating it as though it had just won a race and trying to persuade it to speak again.

..._fuss_...

Only a few people seemed unimpressed. One was Craig, who had gotten over gaping gormlessly and had returned to looking miserable. Another was Claire, who was now talking to Cilla.

"It's not that big a deal," she was saying. "I mean, didn't Lister say earlier that Whatsit could speak. And it's such a random voice! It's all, like..." She mimicked Whatsit's voice exaggeratedly, ending with those illegible whispery noises between the words sounding something like "moo-shan-gah". Cilla raised her eyebrows disdainfully, and Claire added "Do you know what 'moo-shan-gah' is?"

"'Ow should I know?" Cilla answered indignantly.

"'Coz. Everyone knows what 'moo-shan-gah' is!" Claire tutted loudly, and then again, louder, and kept doing it until Cilla's face had turned an interesting shade of red and she looked ready to scream. But Claire didn't want Cilla to scream - that would just be random. Claire was bored, and what better way to entertain herself than to exercise her most prided talent - annoying people. Such a pity her sister wasn't there...but there were plenty of other people; plenty of choice. Craig? Nope, too easy. Jack? Too cool. Vedhix? Too dangerous. Whatsit? Too...random. Ion? Yes...perfect. Claire knew from experience that smart people were fun to annoy, and the earthperson shouldn't prove too great a challenge. She strolled across the plane, feet crunching on the broken plastic, and made herself comfortable in front of her unfortunate victim.

"Eh Ian," she began.

"It's Ion," he corrected her.

"What would you do if you heard a helicopter outside?" she asked innocently. Ion rolled his eyes, but reasoned that Claire was, after all, the youngest person present (possibly barring Whatsit).

"We'd signal to it, I guess. With those reflective things we collected."

"But what if you went outside and it wasn't actually a helicopter?"

"Well what was it?"

"It was, like, this _dinosaur_. Growling. But it was this really random kind of dinosaur that growled when it was happy - 'coz it wanted to be your pet dinosaur. Well? What would you do?" Ion had been keeping quiet, trying to decide whether there was actually any point to the conversation.

"What would you do?" Claire repeated.

"I'd...how big is it?" He had blurted the first thing that came to his mind, and immediately regretted it, as it seemed to encourage her.

"Pretty big - about as big as a bus. Yeah, it's a really random dinosaur. Well, what would you do?"

"I'd kill it and eat it. End of story," he answered shortly. _Now please go away_, he added in his head.

"Aww! Poor dinosaur! But it was a big dinosaur - wouldn't you get on its back and ride home on it? Hey - where are you going?" Ion, knuckles white from clenching his fists in frustration, had stood up and was heading over to Jack. Claire scrambled to her feet and followed.

"Well? Would you ride the dinosaur home?"

"Jack," Ion muttered to the pirate through gritted teeth. "Claire is bored. I need you to entertain her. Tell her about your ship, show her your sword...just do _something_!" It seemed an odd request to Jack - pirates didn't generally entertain thirteen year olds. But beneath the desperation in Ion's voice was a hint of authority - and besides, Jack didn't mind recounting his seafaring tales to people who would listen, and he had his painful loss to try and put out of his mind.

Ion breathed a sigh of relief as Claire quickly became enthralled in the recounting of Jack's latest daring escape from prison in a coffin. Freed from the tireless questioning about Claire's really random dinosaur, he returned to that familiar task of counting up the food supply and calculating.

_Fourteen of us now - the food'll last a little longer, but not much_..._ But there are the canned drinks, they'll help. There's going to be a difficult decision to be made if_... He had been checking things off on his fingers as he counted, but a shuffling noise behind him distracted him and he lost count. He turned angrily to see that irritating little Whatsit, rummaging through a discarded pile of luggage, still relentlessly searching for something.

..._where, where? _..._gone_..._ran, not far though_..._nowhere to run_..._mmm_..._where?_...

_It's Whatsit's fault_. The thought had popped unexpectedly into Ion's head, but the more he considered it, the more logical it seemed. First there was Betty - drunk, certainly, but a simple trip and fall didn't have to be fatal. If Whatsit really just _had_ to sleep holding that knife, did it have to hold it sticking up like that? It had been an accident waiting to happen right from the start. And then there was Silver - he hadn't gotten drunk. But Whatsit had definitely been hanging around him more than anyone else. They'd seemed almost friends sometimes - odd, for an "antisocial little freak". So surely Whatsit would have seen fairly early on that Silver wasn't well? If it had told Ion or Lister or someone earlier...but no. They knew now that it could speak, so why didn't it? Two deaths in just six days, and both, in Ion's opinion, almost entirely to blame on one person. How many more would there be?

"Hey," he whispered. "Come here a minute, would you?" Silent as ever, Whatsit left the baggage and headed over to Ion, who stood up but bent down to speak quietly to Whatsit.

"Why do you wear that mask?" He hadn't expected a reply, and didn't get one - just a stare from hidden eyes.

"You don't want us to know you, do you?" Ion's voice was soft and menacing, but it was impossible to tell whether he was making any impression, and Whatsit began to fiddle with a loose thread on one of its gloves.

"But you can't eat or drink wearing that thing, can you? So you hide, and you take it off. You think I haven't noticed? I've seen you..." He had struck a nerve - there was no doubt of it. Whatsit froze, raising its head sharply to look Ion in the face, and its whole body tensed. There was an awkward pause - and then Whatsit shook its head and seemed to relax slightly. Evidently, he or she had been more careful than that; they knew there could be no way Ion had seen them, and saw through his bluff. Ion was undeterred.

"Well what if I haven't? It would be so easy..." he reached out with one hand and placed the tips of his fingers on the top edge of Whatsit's plastic mask, and Whatsit flinched and tensed again "...just to take it, wouldn't it? Look at us - we're all stuck in here with a blizzard outside. If someone wanted to see you, it wouldn't be long. Nowhere to run - you couldn't get away." He noticed with some satisfaction that the usually steady hand holding the knife was shaking, and he could feel through the mask that Whatsit was trembling and breathing hard. The clear fear and discomfort he was causing gave him a sense of triumph and pleasure, and he tightened his fingertips around the hard plastic edge, continuing in a low, threatening whisper.

"Or...well, I'm as curious as anyone else. Hearing _and_ seeing you, in one day! I could...right...now..." Even Ion wasn't sure whether it was an accident - whether he slipped or had actually meant to fulfil his threats. His fingers pushed the mask down just a few centimetres - and instead of pulling back, which probably would have pulled it off, Whatsit darted forwards, shoving Ion hard and hitting out at the hand that had been on the mask. Ion barely had time to be shocked or surprised before he saw red, and in a sudden flash of anger, made a grab for the mask with the intention of ripping it off. A frenzied struggle followed - Ion desperately trying to get hold of the mask, and Whatsit fiercely fighting him off with surprising strength. The knife dropped to the ground and spun across the floor, and Ion and Whatsit both made a dive for it - but by then, the others had seen the fight, and Lister and Vedhix reached them first. With that almost inhuman speed that he had displayed once before, Vedhix had crossed the plane, kicked the knife out of reach and pulled Whatsit off Ion in less than the time it took Lister - who had been much closer - to grab Ion's shoulders and get him off Whatsit. Whatsit's mask had been knocked askew, and it threw its arms up to hide before straightening it and running a finger over one of the lenses of its goggles, which was cracked. Ion - who had been struggling and hitting out at Lister until Lister shook him sharply - had a red mark around one eye and several on his legs where he had been kicked; he would have some nasty bruises and a splendid black eye to show for the fight.

"What's going on?" Lister demanded.

"Take...it...off," Ion hissed at Whatsit. "_Take_..._it-_"

"Have you lost it, mate?"

"_No_! Don't you...it's...I..." Ion stopped, looked around and stared at Lister. Then, he pushed him angrily away, grabbed a bundled up blanket and strode across the plane, eyes to the ground. He kicked a few seat backs aside and stormed out into the swirling blizzard. Glances were exchanged, and for a long time, no-one spoke a word.

"Random," Claire said finally, breaking the silence.

"What d'ya mean, 'random'?" Cilla exclaimed. "'E's lost 'is marbles, 'e 'as!"

"No he hasn't," said Vedhix quietly.

"Bet he has," said Bri. "He's a stupid chicken."

"Don't you think that's touching a dead bird's wing a bit, assuming that?" Vedhix replied. The unfamiliar saying confused anyone who was about to argue, and only Guenittia could be heard to mutter

"Trust a Necromancer to use that morbid expression!"


	12. When it's all that you've got

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from Bon Jovi's "Living On A Prayer".

* * *

"Where the hell has Ion got to?" Lister wondered aloud.

"He's been gone for hours!" Guenittia exclaimed.

"He's been gone for, like, three minutes," said Keren. "It's not like it's a big deal, really."

Lister said nothing. Perhaps he was more worried than he should have been - it was, after all, only about three minutes since Ion had vanished out into the snow. Tybalt took longer than that to shave every morning. Still, it was cold out there - deadly cold. Whether Ion was just in a funny mood, sulking or really had "lost it", three minutes was a long time to be outside with the temperature well below zero.

"I'm going to get him," he announced. "It's colder than Rimmer's credit card at Christmas out there." A few chuckles could be heard, but apart from that, no-one paid much attention and Lister could tell that they no longer gave a hoot about Ion. Ion, who had taken charge so confidently, a natural and charismatic leader, had now lost the respect of the whole group. Kicking aside the suitcases and bracing himself against the icy wind, Lister realized that there were several people who would probably be happier if Ion stayed outside: Whatsit for one, but probably with reason; and Bri - she had never really liked Ion, and after the loss of her pod...perhaps Ion was safest outside!

Lister pulled down his cap to shield his face and poked his head tentatively outside.

"Ion?" he called, and it felt like the wind had just grabbed his words and crushed them as soon as they left his mouth. It was a complete whiteout - everything just pure, swirling white; he could barely see an arm's length ahead.

"Hey, Ion?" Shivering, he took a few steps outside the plane, sticking close to its side and keeping one hand against it. He was beginning to feel slightly anxious now. Even in this blizzard, the bright yellow and blue Ion should have been easy to spot, and he would have had more common sense than to go far. And yet, somehow, he was nowhere to be found, even when Lister pushed his way through the waist-deep snowdrifts to the nose of the plane.

"ION!" he bellowed into the nothingness. "Ion, where the smeg are you?"

Inside, Cilla was already fed up of waiting for Lister and Ion, and had decided it was time for something to eat. She scrutinized the neatly organized piles of their precious rations for a few minutes before something occurred to her.

"Who's been pinching the food?" she demanded, startling several people out of their bored stupor.

"Hm?" Bri looked up from intently focusing on her empty hand. Her fingers were curled as though she were holding some small invisible object and her thumb was moving in irregular circles.

_She's mad_, Cilla thought privately.

"Someone's et the peanuts," she announced, glaring around at anyone who didn't look up. "That were my pile there, and it's gone!"

"What - just yours?" Vedhix asked.

"Nah - someone else's too."

"Whose?" Ham asked, looking worried.

"'Ow should I know? Ion sorted 'em."

"So there's a difference between the piles?" Cilla considered this, and decided not to answer, instead giving Ham her sour, surly look. Ham glanced around quickly, and then retorted with her werewolf-grin. Cilla, taken completely by surprise, made a funny sort of squeaking noise, but by the time anyone looked around, Ham's teeth were hidden again.

There was a rush of cold air and a flurry of snow, and Lister burst in.

"Ion's gone!"

"Eh? Where?" Bri answered distractedly.

"Gone! Just...gone! I can't find him anywhere!"

This disturbing news was greeted with some dismay, and Jack, Tybalt, Vedhix and Lister ventured out again to have another check, but there was still no sign of him.

Cilla was the first to inform everyone of the missing food, and first to start accusing people. For no apparent reason, she accused Tybalt first, who declared that by the honour of his House, he would hold it a sin to play the knave in such a matter. It seemed the gun-toting Prince of Cats was no thief. She accosted Lister next, and Jack muttered quietly to Claire

"Why is the pirate the last one to be suspected?" Ham and Keren, meanwhile, were poking around near where the upturned food trolley was, suspecting that the missing food had just been misplaced. Old leathery handbags, umbrellas and a ripped briefcase spilling papers were tossed aside as they searched the mess under the broken luggage compartment.

"Wouldn't be surprised if it just got shoved in this pile," said Keren. "I mean, how would anyone be able to get away with stealing food. We're all, like...hey! What's that?" Ham leaned over her shoulder, and was surprised to see two white earphones poking out from under two in-flight magazines and a raincoat. Keren reached over and pulled back the raincoat just as Ham looked back to see who Cilla was accusing now, and swore in surprise when Keren squealed and fell back. She glanced up just in time to see a small flash of white fur and long tail, which leapt out from inside the sleeve and scampered towards the back of the plane. Cilla and Guenittia both shrieked shrilly at the sight of it, and Whatsit spun around and made a dive to grab it, tripped and fell over a bag, sliding across the slippery floor and into the pile of luggage at the back.

"Ha, shame!" Claire and Ham both laughed, but Cilla, still desperate to get away from the mouse, elbowed past Ham and sent her toppling back on top of the mess they had been rummaging through.

Ham's bottom aside (with some shoving - she claimed to have a hangover and couldn't be bothered moving out of the way), Keren pulled out the source of the white earphones and her heart skipped a beat. A black iPod nano, perfection in a black protective cover decorated with little silver spiderwebs. Someone had taken care of it once - its screen and wheel were unscratched, and when Keren flicked back the hold-switch, the wheel responded to the lightest touch of her fingertip. This was everything she had missed, in the palm of her hand and still with an almost full battery! She looked at Bri, staring miserably at her empty hand and moving her thumb, and then back at the little pod in her hand, and slipped it into her pocket. But she was not quite quick enough to avoid the attention of 'Du, who had just come up behind her to see what she was looking at.

"You found an _iPod_?" she breathed in amazement.

"iPod? No!" said Keren defensively. "I was just...talking to Ham. I don't have an iPod. Well, I mean, I do _have_ one, but not here - mine's at home." She was gabbling, and she knew it, but 'Du was only looking more and more doubtful, and it was the first thing that came to her mind to do.

"Yeah you do."

"No I don't!"

"Yes you do. There's, like, an earphone dangling out of your pocket." Keren could feel her cheeks turning red as she tucked the condemning earphone into her pocket.

"Well what if I do?"

"Can I see it?"

"No!"

"You know...I bet Bri would kill for that." Keren didn't doubt it, and after checking the coast was clear, reluctantly pushed the iPod into 'Du's hand. When 'Du flicked the hold switch and turned it on, turning towards the corner to shield it from view, her eyes widened and she stared.

"Turn the backlight off!" Keren hissed. "You're wasting the battery!"

"Sorry," said 'Du quickly. "Which one is it? What language is this in?"

"Eh?" Keren pulled the pod into her view and wrinkled her nose when she saw the screen. "Dunno. Wonder whose it was."

"I think the bottom one's backlight," said 'Du, selecting it. To her relief, the screen's glow faded and she selected the one above it to shuffle the songs.

"Hey - at least their music's not in their language," said Keren. "What does it...oh no."

"Hey - it's-"

"Oh my _god_! One iPod in this whole...half...plane, and it's playing..."

Cash machines and a distinctive bass riff could be heard from the dangling earphones, and Keren grabbed it and paused it.

"Does it have anything _apart_ from freaking Pink Floyd?" she exclaimed, aggressively pressing a button. "U2...another Pink Floyd...Peter Gabriel? ...Steppenwolf..._more_ Pink Floyd...Deep Purple...Syd Barrett? Never heard of him... This is practically, like, a clone of Ellen's iPod! This can't be happening!"

"Shh. I'll listen to that music. Give it here."

"No!" Keren clutched the pod protectively. "I found it!"

"So? You won't listen to it."

"Yes I will! There's got to be _something_ good on it!"

"You'll waste the batteries flicking through them all."

"No I won't! Anyway, _I_ found it." 'Du sighed as Keren repocketed the pod.

"Hey Bri," she called, and felt a small, hard object with a wire in her hand behind her back.

"Hm?"

"Did Whatsit catch that mouse?"

"Uh...yeah, I think so. Fell over, though. Did you see?" While 'Du chatted casually and laughed with Bri, Keren gritted her teeth and clenched her fists and Ham, sprawled over the pile of mess, began to snore.


	13. Slipping into the unknown

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from Peter Gabriel's "Downside Up".

Well, well, well. Viewed my first few episodes of Coronation Street for quite some time, and it seems there have been changes in a few characters. And among them, Craig is no longer a goth and is no longer miserable. That can only mean one thing...

* * *

_Random_, Claire thought to herself, peering out of one of the round airplane windows and surveying the landscape. She wondered whether to tell anyone that it had stopped snowing - but then, it was probably about 6:00am. She didn't have a watch, but the sun was only just rising over the huge, majestic mountains that towered over them. The wreckage of the plane would probably be in shadow until about lunchtime. The sky, as far as Claire could see, was a clear blue, and the much-welcomed light reflected brightly off the new-fallen snow. A lot of new-fallen snow. In fact, so much new-fallen snow that Claire could already picture snowballs, snowmen, snow-turtles, snow-ships... An early morning had never been a problem when it came to playing on computers - why should she wait for all the snow to melt? She shoved down the blockade at the end of the plane, stepped out into the snow and sunk to nearly her waist.

_Far out!_ She shuffled out a bit further, gazing up at the mountains. The snow was the soft, powdery kind, quite dry but still cold. At the top of the nearest mountain, it had settled into an overhanging kind of flick, like the top of an icecream.

_Random_. The snow was starting to make her jeans damp, so she shuffled back into the plane, ducking to avoid catching her hair on a jagged piece of ripped metal that hung down from the top of the hole. People were starting to wake up now, and Claire looked around at the twelve of them. Ham was rubbing her head, still presumably sore from a hangover. Ham was too random and scary, in Claire's opinion. And mean - she'd stolen Jack's rum! And his hat! Then there was Tybalt - he was random. And funny - he seemed so proud of his fancy gun, fancy moves and fancy talk, and wherever he came from, he probably wasn't the kind of person you'd want to be on the wrong side of, but here he was just...random. And Bri - Claire kind of felt sorry for Bri. That random Ian guy broke her iPod, and now she was acting all random and weird. Ian was random too - but he'd just randomly disappeared now. Cilla and Guenittia, they were kind of annoying, in a random way. "Whatsit" was about as random as it was possible to be - in fact, Claire found Whatsit _really_ annoying! Why couldn't it just take off that random mask? And it had such a _random_ voice! But that mouse was cute...

And then there was Jack Sparrow. _Captain_ Jack Sparrow (in the market for a ship at the moment, apparently). Jack was cool. There was no way Jack could be described as "random", with his sword and pistol and hat...and the seafaring stories he could tell! He was actually a real, live pirate, and Claire was in awe of him.

"The tempest has ceased," Tybalt was the first to observe. "Would fortune favour us that we were found today?"

"We'd better be!" Cilla exclaimed. "No reason why they shouldn't look for us now. If we're not, my solicitor's going to 'ave something to say!"

'Du had been unfortunate enough to fall asleep the previous night with the iPod in her hand, and it was an easy enough task for Keren to then take it back. As expected, though, it wasn't long before 'Du noticed it was gone. She elbowed Keren hard while the group was sat around eating their meagre breakfast of peanuts, and held out her hand.

"What?" said Keren indignantly. "Eat your own!"

"iPod," 'Du mouthed. Keren pretended not to understand and continued munching.

After so long cooped up inside, everyone was glad to get out, and spilled out into the snow to make the most of the fresh air. Keren tried to hurry after, but 'Du grabbed her and hung back, out of earshot.

"You took the pod!"

"So? I found it."

"So? You won't even listen to it!"

"Yes I will!"

"I bet Bri would."

"Jesus Christ! Bri's not-"

"I bet Bri would kill for that pod."

"You're bluffing." Keren confidently patted the little pod in her pocket, turned her back on 'Du and strolled outside into the snow. 'Du knew that she could not use violence to retrieve the pod - it would only reveal the fact that they had it. So, it was safest to take her blackmailing a little further, she reasoned, although it could well be dangerous...

"Hey, Bri," she called, hurrying out to stand in front of Keren and hold her hand out behind her back.

"Bluff," Keren whispered loudly.

"You like Pink Floyd and that, don't you?" Keren tried to sidestep around 'Du, but she moved to block her.

"Ew. They're old men."

"See?" Keren whispered. 'Du ignored her and carried on.

"But if there was nothing else to listen to, you'd listen to them, right?" Bri considered this carefully.

"I want my poor baby pod," she said sadly.

"Keren's got..." the pod was shoved hastily into 'Du's hand "...a bit of a thing about that '70s music. Have you noticed? I bet she wouldn't listen to it even if it was the only music around."

Guenittia checked around carefully before leaving the plane. As far as she could see, the frozen bodies of Betty and Silver were nowhere to be seen - the two had thankfully been given a burial by the storm. In her mid-thigh length miniskirt, she didn't particularly want to sink in the snow, so she stepped out carefully onto the solid patches that people had already trodden on, squinting in the bright glare of the sun on the snow. Some distance away, a black spot in the expanse of whiteness, Craig was sitting - alone - and she made her way over to him. He didn't even look up as she sat down next to him, and she saw with a touch of scorn that there were tears in his eyes. At the same time, though, mixed with that scorn, she found herself feeling something she didn't feel very often for someone other than herself - sympathy. She struggled with this thought - it was unfamiliar, and she wasn't entirely sure how to deal with it. Sure, they were all in this situation together, but for Craig...

"What do you want?" he demanded, glaring sideways at her.

"Oh, nothing," she answered. "It's just...well, I know how you're feeling."

"No you don't," he said shortly. "You don't know anything about what I'm feeling." She took a breath, meaning to apologize, but he just continued, plowing right through her before she'd even started. "You couldn't know. Your dad's not dead, your sister didn't kill herself, your mum's not in jail. Even if we were out of this mess by tonight, _you've_ got something to go back to."

"Yeah...yeah, sorry," Guenittia muttered. "Uh...thanks, by the way. For lending me this." She motioned to his black leather coat that she had wrapped around her against the cold, adding "Looks better on you." There was a flicker of a smile on Craig's face - the corner of his mouth twitched and he looked up into Guenittia's face for the first time.

"Oh - uh...no problem. Uh...Ion made me, anyway." Guenittia chuckled, and Craig suddenly found himself actually smiling for the first time in days...

Keren was sitting alone, leaning against the side of the plane and glumly staring into the distance. Inside, 'Du had the precious pod - she was probably listening to it now. Loudly. With the backlight on. Flicking around through the songs. Wasting the batteries.

The sun must have been starting to melt the snow, as it was turning slushy under her feet and if she stared long enough at the snow past where Craig and Guenittia were sitting, she could sort of see a faint shimmering in the air. Past even that, there was another mountain range, with only about two-thirds of them white and the rest dark, hazy violet. There were clouds about halfway up - it was difficult to imagine how high they must be. Craggy shadows at the base of the mountains seemed to twist themselves into strange shapes, and she stared until her eyes began to ache. She was thirsty. And hungry - well, they all were. Vedhix was probably the only one who didn't complain of being hungry, but he didn't really talk much anyway. She hadn't had a rollup for so long...or music...

She yawned widely and rubbed her eyes. As her vision came back to settle on the horizon again, there was something different there, and for a few moments, she couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. When she realized, a shiver ran down her spine, and then a thrill of excitement. There was someone there! A figure on the horizon...no - two figures! Two people!

"Someone's coming!" she shrieked, jumping up. She started running ahead, and around her, people were turning around with exclamations of surprise. The two people were waving - she could see them more clearly now, and she waved back.

Vedhix had been as glad as anyone else when Keren shouted that she could see people - perhaps rescue was on its way! He scanned the area in the direction Keren was running, but could see no-one. Something wasn't quite right...he knew he had perfect eyesight, even if his eyes didn't appear quite normal, but he could see no-one. Nothing except, a long way off, a pair of long-dead trees, standing alone with their blackened branches reaching skywards.

"Keren!" he called, but she either didn't hear or chose to ignore him. "Keren - there's nothing there!"

Keren had almost reached where Craig and Guenittia were sitting when her foot sunk into a deep, wet patch of snow. She fell, and there was a sickening crunch from somewhere, but when she sat up, there was no pain, no bones broken... The whole ground seemed to move suddenly, lurch to the side and then down about a foot. Guenittia grabbed Craig's arm and they started to rise to their feet, Keren gasped and jumped up, and Tybalt, who had been standing just a few metres closer to the plane than Keren, stepped back, a look of horror on his face - he was standing on the edge of an ice step, about a foot higher than the ground Keren was standing on.

"Oh my god..." she murmured. The ground slipped downwards again. "Oh my _freaking_ god!" she screamed, starting to run back towards the plane. Craig and Guenittia, clutching each other's hands, were following, and the ground seemed to be crumbling away from their heels. Suddenly, there was nothing under Keren's feet, and she was falling for a heart-stopping space of time that seemed far longer than it probably was - until a strong, bony grip closed around her wrist and her arm was nearly wrenched from her shoulder. It was Vedhix, who had moved almost faster than the eye could follow to catch Keren just as the whole ground fell away into a gaping crevasse. Neither he nor anyone else was in time or close enough to save Craig or Guenittia, though, and Guenittia's scream was ringing in their ears long after it had faded out as the two fell. Keren hung in midair, held only by Vedhix, who lay flat on the edge of the crevasse.

Inside the plane, 'Du hadn't actually been listening to the pod - she had considered it, but somehow couldn't bring herself to turn it on or do anything that might use up the battery power. She had heard the commotion outside when the first crunch had sounded, and could only stare in horror as the solid white ground gave way to empty black space. And then Keren fell. She forgot the iPod, she forgot her earlier argument over it, and she scrambled to her feet, leaving the little pod abandoned on the floor. She could only think of the need to try and help, and had nearly set foot on the snow outside when there was a sharp stabbing pain in her scalp and her head was jerked back. Her hair was caught in something sharp and metal, and, unable to move, she could only watch while frantically trying to untangle herself.

Vedhix may have been fast, but he was light and not physically strong, and there was the danger of the icy cliff he was lying on the edge of crumbling away at any moment. Lister and Jack wasted no time in helping him to pull up Keren onto solid ground and away from the edge of the crevasse. Keren didn't think she had ever or would ever again feel so relieved as she did then, lying on the cold, wet but comfortingly solid snow-covered ground. She looked around at the concerned faces...three were missing, though.

"Where's...Craig...and Guenittia?" she asked them in a shaky voice, but their faces told her the answer before she'd even finished. "And...'Du?" Then she spotted 'Du, and her relief at seeing her alive quickly changed. What was she doing? She was over by the plane, not even looking in their direction! Fiddling with her hair! She took her hands down from her head at that moment, took a few steps forward and her eyes met Keren's, but Keren's look of disgust and betrayal was returned with confusion from 'Du.

The crevasse was an awe-inspiring sight, and just the sight of it made the eleven remaining members of the group shiver. It seemed to have no bottom to it, and even if there was a chance Craig or Guenittia might still be alive at the bottom, there would be no way of getting down to rescue them. Just measuring its depth would be next to impossible, and two people had been lost to it - nearly three.

Tybalt suddenly fired two shots into the ground in frustration, muttering something, and the loud cracks his pistol made echoed back off the looming mountains several times. No-one spoke, but there were a few worried sidelong glances at the crevasse and snow-covered mountains, and even Tybalt sensed their mood and replaced the pistol in its holster.

* * *

...he must **die**! Don't worry - they didn't suffer much.


	14. Trying to get a message through

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from Bon Jovi's "Runaway".

* * *

_Why is Keren mad at me?_

**_Why didn't 'Du come over?_**

_She nearly died_...

**_I nearly died! And she didn't care! She just, like, stood there and_****...**

..._got my hair caught in that stupid bit of metal_._ But she saw me trying to untangle myself_. _This is about that iPod, isn't it_.

**_I bet it's about that iPod. Is it really worth that much to her?_**

_It wasn't my fault she fell in a crevasse!_

**_It wasn't my fault Bri got the stupid pod!_**

When darkness had begun to fall that evening, Bri had been the first back inside, and was elated to find the iPod just lying abandoned in the middle of the floor where 'Du had dropped it. She knew someone must have owned it at one point, but as far as Keren or 'Du could tell, she was unaware that anyone else knew about its existence - and wanted to keep it that way, in much the same way as they had done when they had it. 'Du and Keren had both noticed her acting a little oddly that evening, seeming unusually bubbly and optimistic...and she had kept one hand in her pocket the whole evening.

Ham had noticed all three acting quite peculiar, but as traces of her hangover still remained, she couldn't be bothered troubling her aching head over it and put it down to the close call Keren had had earlier and the sudden loss of Craig and Guenittia, which they all felt. When the group was sitting around opening packets of peanuts, Keren had come in, looked only briefly at the empty spot next to 'Du and gone to sit next to Whatsit. There, she had made attempts in vain to start conversation and, when that failed, shot filthy looks across the plane in 'Du's direction. It had gone mostly unnoticed by everyone else, though, as they were all a little jumpy that evening. The once quite crowded plane wreckage all of a sudden seemed uncomfortably empty - only eleven were left now.

_Don't know what she's acting all hurt and pathetic for_.

**_Don't know what she's acting all hurt and pathetic for. She wasn't the one who fell in a crevasse!_**

_Well, at least I wasn't seeing things_...

**_...it was snow-blindness. Mirage, or whatever it's called. I'm not, like..._**

..._trying to get attention, probably_._ Unless she's just completely_...

**_...sick of this! Nothing to do, barely any food, and I'm stuck with this bunch of..._**

..._interesting people, really_._ You'd never meet people like this normally_._ I mean, look at Jack_._ And Ion, and Tybalt_...

It was dark now, but with a cloudless sky outside, there was pale light from a three-quarter moon coming through the little windows. It was still too dark to see, though - dark, cold, still and silent. Eventually, 'Du began to drop off, and not even the adrenaline from a near-death experience could keep Keren awake any longer, and she too fell asleep.

A short time later, snoring from Keren and a rustling of paper broke the silence. From the empty bag of Anzac biscuits on the floor, a pink nose emerged. It sniffed, whiskers trembling, and then retreated back into the bag when Keren snorted in her sleep. A few seconds later, it was back, followed by the white, furry head and body of the mouse, who scurried across the floor and into the waiting, open hand of the only other person awake. The hand lifted the mouse, who held a biscuit crumb between its forepaws, and tucked it carefully in their jacket pocket. For a minute or so, all was still and silent again - and then the mouse wriggled out of the pocket and up onto the person's shoulder, where it sat up on its back legs and sniffed the air. Whatsit went to pick it up again, but it squirmed out of their hand, running around the back of their neck to sit on the other shoulder. It squeaked softly and Whatsit, startled, let its hand fall and didn't try to catch it again. The mouse was clearly agitated about something, and moved in circles on Whatsit's shoulder, stopping every so often to sit up on its back legs and sniff. Suddenly, it uttered a high-pitched squeal, leaped to the ground and raced across the plane to the air-hostesses' little room. Keren snorted again, and her snoring stopped but she didn't wake up. Whatsit made no move to follow. It was worried - that mouse never made a sound normally; it was as silent as Whatsit themself. When the little rodent didn't return, it began to feel a little nervous, and a cold feeling of dread was starting to form a knot in its stomach. Something was definitely not right... Its thoughts returned to earlier that day - the crevasse, opening up as if from nowhere under Craig and Guenittia...Keren clinging on for her life to Vedhix's hands...the relief when she had been pulled up to safety, and then the sorrow which fell on the group when they realized Craig and Guenittia had not been caught. And then, a sharp, vivid memory of Tybalt shooting into the ground...the two cracks echoing off the mountains...and Whatsit shivered and drew in its breath sharply when it remembered noticing that fragile cornice at the peak of the nearest mountain range.

As though echoing from Whatsit's memory, there was a distant cracking noise, followed by what could have been a crunch, and suddenly, it was gripped by terror. It kicked whoever was by its feet and shook the shoulders of the people either side of it urgently.

"...wakewake...wakeup...mmm...snowfalling..._avalanche_!" Cilla, who had been kicked, began to snore, but Vedhix and Bri beside Whatsit were half-awake enough to hear its strange, unfamiliar voice.

"Hm? Who's that...oh, it's you!" Bri yawned.

"...avalanche...AVALANCHE!" Whatsit's voice rose almost to a panicked shriek, and as much from the unusualness of this as the words, Bri and Vedhix were suddenly wide awake. Whatsit was already on its feet and shaking people to wake them up, and Bri and Vedhix realized that it was actually serious.

People were standing up groggily, listening - they could hear nothing at first, but by the time everyone was awake, most thought they could hear a low rumbling, like some far-off gigantic lawnmower. It grew louder, until they could all hear it clearly, and the fear that Whatsit was already feeling spread rapidly through the group as they braced themselves, made vague religious gestures or screeched something about being too young to die. There was a dull thud - Whatsit had jumped up and stabbed its knife hard into the wall above a window.

Moments later, it hit - a solid wall of snow that came at the plane from the side, jarring it hard enough to knock half of them off their feet, and the plane was pushed a short distance before it turned. The wall of luggage and seat backs at the end caved in, knocked down by the white mass of snow which flooded into the plane, and they fought for breath as they were pushed over and quickly buried by the tidal wave of ice. Then, it was over, quicker than it had begun. From the surface inside the plane, nothing could be seen except snow, which had filled the plane to just under a metre from the ceiling. It was eerily quiet - as quiet as it had been before it started.

Suddenly, a hand broke the surface - a hand with a ragged, dirty piece of lace wrapped around it. The hand groped around, as though looking for something, and came to rest on the handle of Whatsit's knife, which it grabbed. The hand was then followed by the rest of Jack Sparrow, who pulled himself up using the knife's handle, brushed the snow from his hair, moustache and coat, and looked around. He put a hand up to feel the top of his head, found only his red bandanna and began to dig. The first thing his hand met was a head of curly orange hair - Ham. With a mournful sigh, he remembered his lost rum - but Ham was already shaking her head free of snow and pulling herself up, and besides, he had a more urgent need. He dismissed any thoughts of pushing the snow back over her and continued to search for his priceless hat. Around him, Claire emerged, and then Cilla, Vedhix, Lister and 'Du. Seeing Jack digging frantically, they assumed he was trying to help people out, and began to scrape away the snow around them. But Vedhix had barely started when he cried out as if in pain and put a hand to his head.

"You O.K.?" Ham asked.

"Yeah...fine..." Vedhix answered out of habit, forcing himself to keep digging. It was that feeling again - the dark coldness spreading from somewhere in his mind. Ham and the others would think he was mad if they knew he felt it, and what it meant...but now, people's lives could be at stake.

"S-someone's dead," he stammered finally.

"Eh? Who?" Cilla seemed almost accusing when she asked, but it was too late for Vedhix to regret saying anything now.

"I don't know! Just...just help me!" He dug quickly, uncovering a battered leather hat first that Jack pounced on - but only half of him really wanted to. He didn't want to know who was dead, and he guiltily found himself wondering who he would prefer it to be. He knew all of them the same, and they knew him. Whoever it was...no, he didn't want to think about it. For the moment, he concentrated on digging through the snow to try and prevent any more deaths. This loss brought their number down to just ten...and it had only been a week since they first crashed...

Eventually, everyone had been uncovered or had uncovered themselves, and everyone was sitting up and looking around in amazement and shock at what had just happened...everyone, that is, except one. Lying motionless and still almost half-submerged in the snow was the body of that anonymous person the group knew only as "Whatsit".


	15. You show respect, even if you disagree

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... This chapter title is from David Bowie's "We Prick You".

* * *

It wasn't quite clear if anyone had suggested the almost funeral-like little gathering for the six people who had died. Perhaps it was because Whatsit's was the first grave they had actually had to dig - Betty and Silver had been buried by the snowstorm, Craig and Guenittia's bodies at the bottom of the crevasse had probably been buried by the avalanche that had spilled over the edge of the monstrous crack in the ice, and Ion... he had just disappeared. The one night of the snowstorm after he had gone would have been enough to bury him, wherever he was.

The snow was like iron, so cold and hard that digging a grave with their bare hands was hard going - they only managed about a metre depth in the end. It was also unbearably depressing work. None of them, except perhaps Vedhix, had ever imagined they would dig a grave for someone, and they couldn't shake off the nasty thought that it might be them being buried soon. It was made even worse by the thought that it was someone they had known...or, nearly known. Known as much as that someone had let themselves be known, which wasn't a lot. It was Claire who first voiced this, and she was the first to speak since they had begun the job.

"It's so, like, random," she said. "I mean, we've been stuck here for, like, over a week together and we don't even know his name."

"We don't even know what they look like, let alone their name," Keren answered.

"So take that mask off and 'ave a look," said Cilla, watching while Keren, Lister and Ham scraped at the ice. Keren stared at her in shock and surprise, along with about half the rest of the group who had heard the throwaway comment.

"No way!" said Keren, turning back to kicking the side of the hole. Jack seemed more curious, though, and raised his eyebrows at the body which lay nearby, shrouded in two of the inflight blankets. Vedhix caught sight of the interested look, and his own gaze lingered on Jack's face long enough to notice him move - probably only subconsciously, probably more to watch Bri turning away from the group to fondly caress some small object she held in her hand. Suddenly, he was standing in front of Jack, a strange, unreadable expression on his face.

"Don't touch them," he said coldly.

"Who?" asked Jack blankly, watching Bri over the top of Vedhix's head. What could she have that was so precious? More rum? But Vedhix neither answered, nor moved. Jack's sharp mind quickly realized who Vedhix was talking about as he remembered what Cilla had said, which he had barely paid attention to at the time. He was still a little puzzled, though - he had been under the impression that Vedhix had hated Whatsit. Still, naturally, if he was not allowed to do something, wasn't that all the more reason to do it? It generally was in any self-respecting pirate's book.

"I don't see why not."

"_Don't_ touch them..." Vedhix repeated, and his red eyes seemed to flash menacingly. Jack, who had looked into the dead, bloodshot eyes of Davy Jones, was unfazed, brushed a few flecks of snow off his coat and went to step around Vedhix, who moved in front of him again.

"Why?" he demanded.

"Curiosity," Jack replied promptly. "Won't hurt. Only kills cats."

"If you take that mask off, I'll kill you." Vedhix was clenching his fists, as if struggling to keep his hands by his sides, and Jack remembered when the Necromancer had attacked Whatsit the other day, pinning them up against the wall by their wrists.

"Techy," Claire whispered loudly to Lister, who scratched the inside of his ear thoughtfully.

"Ah, but you're forgetting one thing," Jack smirked. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow." He went to move past Vedhix again - unsuccessfully again.

"Just get on with that hole, Vedhix," Cilla butted in. "Not like 'Whatsit's' going to mind, is it?"

"It's...it's not...not right," said Vedhix. "It's like...robbing a dead man. You wouldn't do that."

"Pirate," Jack pointed out.

"A question of honour," Tybalt pointed out.

"So you wouldn't steal off one of that Montague lot?" asked Jack.

"Steal? I would take his life, and no less!" Tybalt declared. Vedhix glared at him - he glared back, daring Vedhix to try and say something, and Vedhix probably would have if Lister hadn't decided that the argument wasn't a good idea at the moment.

"Look - this is a more dangerous conversation than the one I had last time Rimmer tried to get me to have a bath," he said.

"Yeah, can we just, like, you know..." Keren's voice trailed off, and she looked around unsurely, but the others seemed to agree, apart from 'Du, who had completely ignored her and turned away.

In a matter of just fifteen minutes or so, there was nothing left to see of the nameless person except a mound of snow, which they stood around in a solemn semicircle, Jack with his hat in his hands. Most of them felt that they should say something, but they were either unsure of what to say or unwilling to be the first one. Finally, the silence was broken when Lister sneezed and they all jumped.

"Well, that's a minute's silence," said Cilla, and turned to walk back to the plane wreckage.

"This is for six people, you know," Vedhix called after her, but Jack was already replacing his hat on his head and Lister was also leaving.

Ham, Bri, 'Du and Keren were thinking of Betty, their friend of however many years. Now that Ham's hangover was gone, a new kind of pain was beginning to surface - pain of a loss, which wasn't helped when she thought of the suddenness of her death and those which had followed. One minute, they had been part of the group; living, breathing, talking (or most of them)...and then they weren't, and it was hard to believe that they were gone for good, it had just happened so quickly. Ham could almost imagine that she could go back into the plane and see Whatsit sitting there with its mouse in one hand; Silver and Craig chatting nearby; Guenittia fixing her hair with a window as a mirror; Betty perhaps also checking her hair, brushing her fringe over her face. And then Ion would come back in and say he'd gotten the radio working and called for help, and there would be a helicopter here in a few hours.

Except that Ion still being alive after disappearing like he did probably was about as likely as a helicopter arriving in a few hours. Ham wondered how long it would be - if at all - before she would see her home... Chester... Ellen... Physics at school...everyone and everything she missed. Especially Ellen.

Ham, Bri and Keren sat down in the snow in a group, Bri and Keren both thinking much the same thoughts as Ham. 'Du was about to join them when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught an unmistakable loathing glare from Keren. Abruptly, she turned on her heel and stalked away from her friends and back to the plane, leaving Bri and Ham only able to guess at what might be going on.

Tybalt was halfway back to the plane when Vedhix caught up to him.

"Did you mean it when you said you would kill one of the Montagues?" he asked quietly.

"T'would be disgrace to go back on my word when I have sworn to take the life of a foe," Tybalt replied.

"But you wouldn't _actually_ do it, would you? I mean, if it came down to it and you had a weapon in your hand...you wouldn't _actually_ kill someone."

"Thou art doubting my word!" Tybalt exclaimed, outraged. "Thou art not seeing me as a man of a sword and the courage to use it!"

"No - I-"

"I am of the House of Capulet! The Montague curs have been enemies of my father, and his father before him! I would not hesitate to carry our life-feud to its end...to _their_ end!" He drew his pistol and fired a shot into the air, and Vedhix winced.

"Don't shoot that katekking thing!" he snapped. "You want to set off another avalanche or something?"

"This is the sword which will spill the blood of my enemies! And it will spill thy blood also for this insult!"

"I'm not fighting you," he said and turned away.

"Dishonourable submission," Tybalt hissed. "Stand and draw!"

"I'm a _Necromancer_, Tybalt! Do you know what that means?" Tybalt spun the pistol deftly on one hand. "It means you can't fight me!" Tybalt was quietly confident, and once again saw no need to reply except to repeat

"Stand and draw." Vedhix could feel the anger clouding his common sense, and when Tybalt arrogantly persisted, he gave up trying to suppress it. His hands were getting hot, and he clenched his fists. There was a powerful urge coming from somewhere in him - from whatever part of his mind he had felt the deaths in - to just move forwards and attack Tybalt there and then. But no - if the Prince of Cats wanted an "honourable" fight to the death, that was what he would get.

"Fine," he muttered through gritted teeth and turned back to Tybalt who smiled coldly and triumphantly. Vedhix was unaware that they were now being watched in fascination by the whole group - but Tybalt was all too aware, and continued twirling the pistol.

"Put up thy sword," he said, pointing the pistol at Vedhix. To anyone else, this would have been a directly threatening gesture, but where Vedhix came from, there were no guns and it was considered more threatening to offer to shake hands with someone.

"My weapons are my hands," said Vedhix calmly, holding them out to show he had nothing else. A murmur of unease ran around the group, but no-one was doing anything to stop them. Tybalt and Vedhix (if what little had been said about Necromancy was true) were probably the two deadliest people there, and no-one much fancied the idea of stepping between them. If Vedhix was no match for Tybalt's "sword", he would be killed - they knew that - but they also knew that it would be very unwise to interfere with Tybalt.

The pair moved apart until they were about twenty metres apart and stood facing each other. Tybalt had replaced his pistol in a holster at his belt, and every muscle in his body was tense as he watched Vedhix. His stance was oddly reminiscent of someone out of an old Western movie, feet planted slightly apart and hands away from his sides, ready to draw. Vedhix seemed more relaxed, and stood with his hands by his sides, watching Tybalt with what appeared to be boredom, but inside he was seething with anger. They stood like that for some time, each just watching the other...and then Vedhix reached up with one hand to brush his long hair off his face, and Tybalt, who had been like a coiled spring waiting for Vedhix to make the first move, drew his pistol from its holster and fired. Vedhix could almost have been expecting it - as soon as Tybalt's hand moved to the gun, he threw himself to the ground, and the bullet missed him by about an arm's length. Tybalt was amazed - he had never missed a shot before. And he had never seen anyone move like Vedhix did then, when he took aim again and fired, and Vedhix dodged sideways - he was reacting before Tybalt had even fired, moving as the trigger was pulled and anticipating his every move. He fired a third time as Vedhix was getting to his feet, and missed so narrowly that it was almost as if he_ had_ just missed.

When Vedhix had agreed to the fight, he had been so frustrated with Tybalt that he hadn't really thought much about what could happen, and if it had \been much longer before that first shot, he later thought he might have backed out. He could remember all too well the last time someone had picked a fight with him - but then, he hadn't even known that he was a Necromancer. Now, he was sure he would be able to control whatever power he had. This time, he would let go in time...

The moment that first shot was fired, though, everything just became a blur - his life was in danger, and suddenly it seemed that the only thing that mattered was to either keep evading or return the attack. Before he could stop himself - before he even knew what he was doing, he had darted forwards at Tybalt. He was fast, but he was getting up from a kneeling position and Tybalt sidestepped out of the way and turned to fire again. They ended up about five metres apart, both standing, both tense and breathing hard. Tybalt had no idea what Vedhix could do to him if those hands touched him, but he had seen a look in the Necromancer's eyes that he didn't like; a kind of glazed look that suggested he actually had very little control over what he was doing. Tybalt found himself defending his own life for the first time as he fired straight at Vedhix just as Vedhix moved towards him again. There was a click...he squeezed the trigger twice more, with the same result. There was only a brief second in which all those shots he had carelessly wasted flashed past his mind, and then just terror as Vedhix's hands closed over his hand on the gun, with a grip that burned like a branding iron.

The onlookers had been stunned into inaction from the start, and now no-one really grasped what was happening until, a second or so after Vedhix had touched him, Tybalt's eyes became unfocused and he collapsed. Vedhix stumbled back, staring at his hands in horror. He looked around - several people had turned away just before he had reached Tybalt, not wanting to see, and those who were still watching flinched when they looked at him, and saw his eyes; the red in the centre of them had grown to fill the whole coloured part of his eyes as well, glowing strangely in his pale face. He could already guess what they were scared of, and not just because he knew what the light in his eyes meant, but also because of the strange tingling feeling that was running through his body, filling him with energy and power - someone else's life, which didn't belong in him. At the same time as it made him feel safe and powerful, he also felt contaminated. That thing which he had vowed to himself would never happen again had just happened - he had killed someone.

He felt shaky and sick, and fell to his knees in the snow, covering his face with his hands. It just didn't seem fair - he was a Necromancer! He was supposed to _control_ life and death! There should be a way he could reverse what he had done, but he had no idea how. And he didn't want the responsibility of being able to do any of it...he didn't want anything to do with it...it shouldn't be something one person could control...

"Vedhix?" A cautious voice behind him - even Lister, who had seen some strange stuff in his life, wasn't quite sure of what he had seen, and gave Vedhix a wide berth as he moved to Tybalt, meaning to check for a pulse.

"It's no use doing that," said Vedhix in a muffled voice, and Lister's hand jerked away from Tybalt's.

"Vedhix...what happened?"

"Can't you see? Isn't it obvious?" Vedhix's voice cracked, and he shook his head.

Behind him and Lister, near the back of the small group of onlookers, Keren seemed distracted by something. She could hear a strange noise coming from far off - a kind of rattling rumble that was only just distinguishable, even in the silence that had now fallen over them. Remembering the mirage she had seen earlier, though, she was reluctant to say anything - although she was sure she could hear something, there would be no living it down if it too turned out not to be there. And besides, the only person beside her was 'Du. She took a few steps away, said nothing and scanned the horizon...


	16. Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?

**DISCLAIMER THINGY:**

Still don't own much... Suppose I ought to admit that I (fairly obviously) don't own the 138 gorgeous words of this chapter, which are from John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men". And the chapter title is, of course, from Queen's immortal "Bohemian Rhapsody".

* * *

The road winding through the mountains was bumpy and potholed. Flies circled around one small, long-dead roadkill, and ants swarmed over a rusting crushed beer can at the edge of the road. On one side, cliffs rose to snow-topped mountains; on the other side, the ground was flat and open, with a muddy river flowing nearly parallel to the road, and patches of snow scattered in clumps of tussock grass. Across the open patch, in the distance, another even higher row of mountains loomed, white down to the ground, an impassable wall except for one gap, only just wide enough to be seen from the road.

For a moment, the place was lifeless, and then two men emerged from around a bend and came strolling along the road. Both were dressed in denim trousers and in denim coats with brass buttons. Both wore black, shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders. The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Ever part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely and only moved because the heavy hands were pendula. They were talking quite loudly, and their appearance and voices startled a bird out of a tree.

"But why didn't you let me have no ketchup on my beans?" the second larger man demanded.

"I awready tol' ya, Lennie!" the first man exclaimed with an exasperated sigh. "'Cause that other guy wanted it."

"But we was there firs', George!" Lennie argued. "Why'd you jes' give it to that guy?"

"'Cause 'that guy' had 'iron fist' tattooed across his knuckles, a nail through his nose an' 'Darkside 4 Lyf' on his jacket." There was a pause, and then George added "Gloria Jeans' ketchup don't taste no good anyways." Lennie pouted, and they continued in silence for a while, until he caught sight of something by the side of the road some way ahead.

"Look up there, George!" he said excitedly, pointing. George had already seen, though, and shielded his eyes with his hand as he squinted to see. The indistinct shape was bright against the brown of the wide, flat land, yellow and blue, and when they got a little closer, Lennie almost squealed

"A _rabbit_, George!"

"No he ain't," said George. "He's an earthperson."

The earthperson was sitting huddled by the side of the road, leaning with his back against a boulder. He didn't appear to notice them at first as they approached, until they were about two metres away, when he glanced up and watched the two men expressionlessly. He looked like he had been in a fight fairly recently - he had bruises on his legs and a black eye that "Darkside" guy would have been proud of - he appeared wearier than even George had ever been in his life, and there was a crumpled blue blanket by his side. After scrutinizing the two of them, he must have convinced himself that they were really there, as he said slowly

"N-need to g-g-get help..." He was shivering, and George knelt down in front of him while Lennie stood watching, fascinated.

"There ain't no-one for miles," George said to the earthperson. "Who you wanna get help for?"

"C-crashed," the earthperson stammered. "Six-...fifteen...n-no - fourteen. Betty got st-stabbed..." He shook his head miserably and looked down.

"A crash?" George repeated. "But they went an' called the search off yesterday!"

"Wh-why? We're still there! N-no-one's going to help?"

"Look, we're goin' to a ranch-"

"Like we done before!" Lennie interrupted, but George ignored him.

"Should be there by tonigh'. Lennie gone an' los' the phone, so you come with us an' we'll call from there. Awrigh'?" The earthperson nodded, and as George and Lennie helped him to his feet, they thought they had rarely seen someone so relieved.

...

Vedhix, kneeling in the snow beside Tybalt's lifeless body, didn't seem to have heard, but the deep whirring rumble had now grown loud enough so that Keren couldn't believe it might not be there. Her eyes searched the clear, blue sky as her ears tried to work out what direction it might be coming from. Around her, no-one was saying anything. Could they too have heard it? Or could they just be silent because of what had just happened, afraid to say anything in case Vedhix lashed out at them?

_What's that noise_, 'Du wondered. She was about to look up and see if she could see anything, when she remembered the last time...the last false alarm. She certainly didn't want to be the one to get everyone's hopes up for no reason this time, so instead of turning her face skywards, she turned it sideways to shoot another filthy look at Keren.

_Random noise_, Claire thought to herself. _Doesn't sound like an avalanche_._ Random_.

When the fight had begun, Bri had taken the opportunity to slip inside, stick a certain pair of white earphones in her ears and switch on the iPod. The music wasn't entirely to her taste, but the feeling of cold metal and plastic in her ears, with sound only she could hear blocking out the world was comforting. It wasn't her own poor pod, but it helped. As the delicate pizzicato strings sound of "The Time of the Turning" faded out, Bri stole a peek around the corner, but the group were standing in the way of her seeing whatever was happening between Vedhix and Tybalt, so she pulled her head quickly back out of sight. Just as she was about to check what song had come on, she hesitated. She could hear something - a low rumble that grew quickly to a roar...the roar of airplane propellors! And then a man's voice bellowed out, but it took Bri a second or two to register what it was saying.

"_Pink! Get Pink! Son? Get away-_" She hit the "skip" button rather more viciously than she had intended, and immediately felt guilty - but at least the airplane noise from the song had stopped. A check of the iPod's screen told her the next track was another Pink Floyd one - "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond". Quiet synthesizers...and that noise was there again, only faintly this time, but still whirring in the background somewhere. This time, she paused the song - and the noise continued! She yanked the earphones out of her ears, shoved the pod in her pocket without even bothering to turn it off, and raced outside.

There was no doubt now that everyone had heard the noise, even though still nothing had been said aloud. It didn't seem necessary to say anything, as they were all looking in the same direction: out towards where there was a gap in the enclosing mountain range, where the sound seemed to be coming from. Keren hardly dared even blink in case she missed seeing what she hardly dared hope for in case it turned out to not be true. Suddenly, it was there - three dark shapes in the air, heading towards them. They were moving quite quickly, but to the group with their eyes fixed on them, they seemed to be approaching in slow motion. Now they were clearer - three helicopters, heading straight for them, and when they were close enough to see the outlines of the pilots, the group's realization of what was happening that they had kept pent up inside as they waited for this moment crashed over them all at once, and there were hardly words to express it. They were rescued! Somehow...they couldn't imagine how...they had been found, and they were going to go home!

Jack removed his hat and waved it, for all the world like he was signalling a passing ship from a desert island; Cilla screeched something at the helicopters; Ham grinned, showing all her teeth to a startled Claire who was too excited for even the word "random"; and 'Du found herself suddenly crushed in a bear-hug from Keren, which she returned gladly.

* * *

**THE END**

By Aietradaea

* * *

Well, that's it. End of an era. 6 months, 20 days in the writing (200 days); 29,404 words; 16 chapters & 15 song lyrics; 18 different characters making an appearance. Ideas that didn't make the cut included Bri killing Ion; Keren physically beating up 'Du; and 'Du duelling with Craig.

There's a couple more ideas currently shelved for something else in a similar vein, but those could be a while in coming. Hope you enjoyed this one, in the meantime - and do feel free to leave your comments! :)


End file.
